Fresh ideas to engage international students through virtual activities
A virtual cooking class hosted by exchange students studying at CUHK is broadcast live to audiences across the world as part of a virtual cultural activity that promotes Hong Kong food culture.
The Office of Academic Links (OAL) has unleashed its creativity to bring its catalogue of popular cultural activities catered for international exchange students online. Two virtual activities held in March and April, offered as co-curricular programmes under the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Virtual Student Exchange (VSE) programme, have successfully engaged a global audience and promoted CUHK and Hong Kong internationally. The encouraging responses prompt for other virtual activities to be offered to exchange students in the future.
‘Cook with Us in Hong Kong’ was conducted in March in collaboration with the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB). The event kicked off with an introduction to the local culture of yum cha and dim sum eating, and an interactive video on Hong Kong food culture produced by HKTB. Joshua and Anastasia, exchange students from the US and Denmark who were studying at CUHK under the Global Learning Opportunities in Business Education (GLOBE) programme, together with a guest chef, invited the virtual activity’s participants to make dumplings together. In April, OAL hosted its first-ever virtual tour of the CUHK campus. Participants were taken on a virtual journey led by OAL colleagues through the beautiful campus and learnt about the history and culture of the University.
The CUHK virtual campus tour introduces numerous campus landmarks and interviews exchange students on campus.
In order to share and learn success stories and best practices for organising co-curricular programmes for the VSE, CUHK, in collaboration with APRU, hosted a webinar ‘International Exchanges Unbound: Developing Co-curricular Programmes to Support Virtual Mobility’ on 16 April. Chaired by the Director of Academic Links Ms. Shally Fan and APRU’s Director of Network Programs Ms. Jackie Wong, the webinar began with case presentations by practitioners from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Korea University, Tohoku University, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, and University of California, Davis, followed by breakout group discussions on how to apply those lessons to future virtual activities.
The APRU VSE co-curricular programme webinar gathers practitioners from across the Pacific Rim to share success stories and best practices in organising virtual activities for international students.
The VSE programme has been shortlisted as one of the finalists of the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia 2021 in its ‘International Strategy of the Year’ category. THE Awards Asia offers an international platform to recognise outstanding leadership and institutional performance, and celebrate the continent’s higher education excellence. The winners will be announced in December.