Going on exchange is an unforgettable and rewarding experience.
Going on exchange is an unforgettable and rewarding experience. Living in another country gave me the chance to learn about a new culture, meet new people and find new places to explore. I improved my English and learned more professional knowledge.
My host institution – Cornell University is located in a small town called Ithaca which is a four-hour drive from New York City and a one-hour drive from its nearest big city. So this place is relatively quiet and a little boring, most people in this small town are students. That makes Cornell University a perfect place for studying and doing research free from distraction.
Studying abroad is a challenging experience. First of all, I did not get the dorm, so I need to contact the landlord to rent an apartment. Adding to the problem, seldom landlords are willing to provide semester-long rent. Also, I faced a language barrier. Though I had learned English for a long time and used English in CityUHK, communicating with and listening to native speakers are still different, they speak faster and use slang. Moreover, the courses I took is challenging, I needed to spend long time on my coursework.
During my exchange study, I experienced many different things. Life in the US is quite slow-paced compared to Hong Kong. The campus is big, it often took me more than 10 minutes walking between the different academic buildings. Also, the people in the US are always enthusiastic and willing to chat, as the salesperson and waitress, they often greet you and chat with you about something interesting. I tried many new things there, like bowling, golf and wine tasting. Immersed in the culture, I learned and understood more about American and western culture. And I met some wonderful people from all around the world during my exchange and developed friendships with some of them, we even agreed to meeting in Hong Kong after the pandemic.
Dinner with exchange friends
Academically, the workload and pressure were really heavy at Cornell University. In CityUHK, usually, a course is a 3-hours lecture once a week. But at Cornell, the classes of my courses are 50-minutes and three times a week. Also, the assignments are given more often, every course has an assignment every week or every two weeks. The teaching method of my courses at Cornell is more traditional, professors often write down the contents on paper or blackboard. And the contents contain more about proof. There are also a lot of interactions between professors and students, a course chooses and asks two students to write down the review and feedback of every lecture. In my classes, there are some very talented students that can raise some challengeable and interesting questions. Surprisingly, my team won a prize in Cornell Mathematical Contest in Modeling, that’s an encouragement to me. All in all, my exchange experience let me learn more about American culture and English, also let me make more friends and study deeper and broader in mathematics.
Trip to Niagara Falls
Mid-Autumn Festival in Cornell
Trip to Miami
Visiting MIT
