On June 16, Overseas Students Office of Sichuan University (SCU), together with 12 overseas students, participated the immersion program Be There or Be Square at Shuangliu District of Chengdu upon invitation of Shuangliu District Opening-up and Foreign Affairs Committee. Be There or Be Square program is an on-going activity organized by Shuangliu District Opening-up and Foreign Affairs Committee. The program invites overseas students in Chengdu to visit and participate in employment-related events and keep overseas students informed about employment policies and opportunities at Shuangliu.
Employment of overseas students is a vital indicator of education quality. SCU has been focusing on training students with a global vision. Through cooperation with the local governments, SCU explores and implements new models on and new channels to train and incubate students with broad international vision and to facilitate employment and entrepreneurship.
On June 16, with the introduction given by the student report of the airport city, overseas students from SCU better understood the history and development of Shuangliu Aviation Economic Zone and got a taste of the charm of the airport district. Guided by staff from Tongwei Solar (Chengdu) Co., Ltd., overseas students at SCU visited the company and knew about the history and operation model of this Top 500 company in China. “The operation model of the Chinese company is already quite modernized. The pollutant treatment technology is also very advanced. No wonder it is a famous ‘green factory’ in China”, Nouman, a Pakistani student from College of Polymer Science and Engineering, exclaimed after the visit at Tongwei.
The second stop is UESTC Science Park where companies incubated through university-local government cooperation clusters. Thanks to the introduction of the staff, overseas students from SCU got an intuitive impression on the importance and promising future of hi-tech industries such as electronics, information technology, telecommunication, and IoTs. During the visit, Daulet, a Kazakhstan student, shared his observation, “As an overseas student in China, I am fully aware of the rapid development of hi-tech industries like the internet, electronics, and information technology. Based on my internship experience and through this visit, I am amazed again by the popularization of intelligent operation at Chinese companies. I hope to accumulate hands-on experience in China after my graduation before going back to my home country for start-up.”
At the third stop of the visit CNBM (Chengdu) Optoelectronic Materials Co., Ltd., engineers introduced cadmium telluride film-based PV cell, a key product of the company, to overseas students from SCU. During the visit, students in relevant majors had deep conversations with engineers on technical issues to combine what they learned in classes with industrial application. Sara, a Morocco student majoring in chemical engineering, expressed her desire to accumulate experience through learning in college and working in China after graduation. She wanted to create more chemical products via innovation and start-up.
As an ending note, staff from Public Security Bureau and Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Shuangliu District made bilingual presentations. Overseas students from SCU were informed of visa policies related to employment and start-up in Chengdu and preferential policies for foreign citizens paying social insurance in Chengdu. Staff on-site answered visa- and social insurance questions from overseas students patiently and students were active in discussions. It was a shared feeling of participants that this program came in handy for their study, life, and employment in Chengdu and benefited them a lot.