During a three-week period in May/June 2002, twenty-two students from the Institute of Technology attended a Global Seminar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. The University's Global Campus program, whose goal is to provide students with an international experience as part of their Minnesota curriculum, organized this seminar geared towards students interested in understanding the emerging global nature of the high-technology industry where teams in various parts of the world interact with each other as a distributed enterprise. The Institute of Technology believes experiences such as this seminar are beneficial in helping to prepare students to participate more effectively in an increasingly global economy.
Susan Kubitscheck of the IT Dean's office, and Dr. Hong Yang, the Director of the University of Minnesota's China Center, helped organize the visit, while Profs. Baoquan Chen and Jaideep Srivastava, both of the Computer Science and Engineering Department, provided the academic experience. Ms. Kubitschek and Prof. Chen led the student group for the first half of the program, and Prof. Srivastava led the group in the second half.
Students earned three semester credits for the seminar. The curriculum consisted of one credit each of databases, computer graphics, and a special course titled "Globalization of the Software Industry". Visits to a number of companies, including Happy E-Pie, Tong Fan/Zi Guang, Founder Research, Microsoft Research Asia, ChinaSoft/Computer Associates and Medtronic supplemented in-class teaching. The course work and company visits provided the students a first hand experience of the issues and logistics in interacting with technologists as well as the work environment in China, both of which they are likely to face in their future careers.
The last but certainly not least important aspect of the seminar was a well-designed and rich cultural experience program consisting of visits to a number of well known cultural and historical landmarks in Beijing, including the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Forbidden city, Summer Palace, Beijing University, Tsinghua University, and Wangfujing Street; and a three day visit to Shanghai. The opportunity to interact with students at Tsinghua University was also an invaluable contribution of the seminar.
The feedback on the program shows that it was a wonderful educational and cultural experience for the students. A web site recounting the experience has been created at http://www-users. cs.umn.edu/~baoquan/china02.html.
Student participants were Abdirizak Abdi, Jamal A. Abdulahi, Kate Anderson, Nat Clark, Kyle Crum, Micah Dyrud, Chet Harrison, Mandy Jepson, Frank Kumosz, Julie Lee, Danny Lo, Tom Manley, Aden Millah, Mat Moeser, Jaime Nivala, Charlie Nutter, Candy Pederson, John Peterson, Lisa Rassel, Daniel Rogahn, Adam Wolff, and Bill Zhou.
The University is planning to offer this seminar again in summer 2003. The planned itinerary will be Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. For information please contact Susan Kubitschek at kubit001@tc.umn.edu.
-Jaideep Srivastava