Minds Abroad
Programs and Reviews
Minds Abroad offers educational travel, study abroad and volunteer travel in Asia. Focusing on Chinese language programs and culture immersion, Minds Abroad provides a hands-on understanding of non-traditional culture by putting students in real-life contexts.
Impact Abroad, the volunteer provider, offers an opportunity for those of the Western world who are interested in helping handicapped children and orphans in Yunnan. Specifically, you would volunteer at the Yunnan Children or other child welfare institution in Yunnan. Impact Abroad partners with these institutions to place volunteers.
Programs Abroad
Visitors who viewed this provider also viewed...
Reviews
90%Overall
Rating
Minds Abroad's Response to Matthew:
Dear Matthew,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your volunteer experiences online. We are so happy that you like our volunteer program in Kunming with Minds Abroad! Your feedback on the volunteer preparation is really helpful, we will give our students advices and guidance before they begin teaching to make sure that they can adjust the volunteer work better. Thanks again for your suggestion! We would love to see you again.
Minds Abroad
100%Overall
Rating
I took part in a similar trip last summer! We traveled to Vietnam for an extended weekend, and it was one of the highlights of the trip. Sapa was absolutely beautiful, and it was interesting to experience both the very different Vietnamese and Chinese settings as part of the same travel experience. The other excursions I went on were also incredible: Shangri La, Lijiang, Dali, Shanghai, and of course, Beijing. Classes were intense, but fun, and my Mandarin improved greatly during my four weeks overseas with Minds Abroad. Overall, a definite highlight of my life.
Critical Feedback:
Minds Abroad participants in Kunming live in different places throughout the city, and during the evenings in Kunming, time was very, very open and unstructured. I wish that either there had been more people in my apartment with me, that I had done a home-stay instead (which they offer), or that I had taken advantage of more available opportunities to do stuff within the city of Kunming itself.
Minds Abroad's Response to Matthew:
Dear Matthew,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences online. We are so happy that you enjoyed your trip to Vietnam with Minds Abroad! It is also great to know that your Mandarin improved a lot.
Your feedback on our apartment location is really helpful, we will try our best to arrange our student apartments in the same area and put the students in the same apartment with their group. Thanks again for your suggestion. We would love to see you again.
Minds Abroad
90%Overall
Rating
So basically this program with minds abroad was the complete package that included learning Chinese with great teachers, volunteering, living with a typical Chinese family, and most importantly experiencing the culture. Most meals are provided and the living arrangements are usually of high standard, all the Chinese families have had background checks before they can join the program. Learning the language is by no means easy and you have to be ready to put in a lot of effort in order to see worthy results. However it is possible to make a large improvement in a short period of time. I liked the Chinese people the best, they were all very nice and I got the chance to socialize with them a lot. Overall I recommend the program to anyone looking to learn or have a good time in China. Also it was the most affordable program that I could find.
Critical Feedback:
I personally would have liked the option to travel more and see more of China than I actually did. And maybe focus less on studying, which took up a lot of my time.
Minds Abroad's Response to dadiaz:
Dear Daniel,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences online. We are so happy that you enjoyed your stay in Kunming with Minds Abroad in 2011! Your suggestion on traveling more is really helpful! This year we have designed China Travel Only Program, India Travel Only Program, Vietnam Travel Only Program and Thailand & Cambodia Travel Only Program to offer more choices for those students who prefers traveling. Please browse our website (www.mindsabroad.com) for more details about these programs. We would love to see you again!
Minds Abroad
90%Overall
Rating
When I went to China not knowing anything or knowing anyone in Kunming I was quite nervous. But the Minds Abroad staff was so welcoming and supportive when I met them, they showed me around and provided the resources I needed. My best times were in the classroom learning with my teacher. She was so knowledgeable and had high expectations of me, and I challenged myself every day, using the most of the opportunity. I had an amazing experience helping at a local church and on one weekend, I had the opportunity to join the team to a rural minority village to hold a medical clinic, something that has impacted me even until today. Being on my own I learned to conquer the fear of getting lost because it is reality. But it was a good challenge for me and I made lots of local friends and experienced so much about living life in China.
Critical Feedback:
n/a
Minds Abroad's Response to ruth929:
Dear Ruth,
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences online. We are so happy that you enjoyed your stay in Kunming with Minds Abroad! Please do let us know if there is anything we can do to make our program better. Your suggestions are more than welcomed. We would love to see you again.
Minds Abroad
100%Overall
Rating
The Chinese Class in the morning is pretty active and flexible since most of the time it was a 1 on 1 class. My teacher taught me based on my language level and study progress, and she took me to market, parks, restaurants to learn and practice with local people. That was a great fun.
I chose volunteer in the afternoon. The kids are cute and I tried my best to teach them English. Anyway, it's hard to make them listen to you because there are 50 students in one class!! I have a volunteer partner, she is a local Chinese girl, we went to the volunteer site together and she helped me when I couldn't express myself in English. However, the time spend with the kids was the most unforgettable time in Kunming.
Critical Feedback:
The volunteer experience was amazing, just my volunteer partner always late, that made us kind of rush everyday. I can understand that, but really not used to it. Next time I would love to join a study and travel program.
Minds Abroad's Response to Cindy:
Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences online. I am so happy that you enjoyed your stay in Kunming with Minds Abroad! I will share your feedback with the entire team. They would love to know that you enjoy the morning Chinese class and afternoon volunteering activities. Your feedback on the volunteer partner is really helpful, we will talk to our volunteer partner about it to make sure that you can arrive the NGO school on time. We would love to see you again.
Minds Abroad
Alumni Interviews
Staff Interview
What position do you hold at Minds Abroad? What has been your career path so far?
Zoe: I am the Coordinator of China Programs at Minds Abroad, a study abroad company in Asia that combines traditional classroom education with academic tours and service learning opportunities. In my capacity as a program coordinator, I mainly help with the implementation of study abroad programs in China. I work closely with university partners and other institutional partners to ensure that they don't face any language barrier and enjoy our programs at the same time. I have also worked with our partner NGOs to help our volunteers fully engage in service learning activities. I am also in charge of leading excursions to various cities and countries in and around China's Yunnan province, where our office is located. Cities and countries I have brought students to are Beijing, Shanghai, Vietnam etc. After graduation, this has been my first job so far. I started my career as a program associate at Minds Abroad and was eventually promoted to program coordinator after I gained substantial, hands-on work experience at the company.
Did YOU study abroad? If so, where did you go and what inspired you to go?!
Zoe: I have never studied abroad. However, I intend to go abroad and explore different cultures in order to broaden my horizon.
What does the future hold for Minds Abroad - any exciting new programs to share?
Zoe: AThe future holds great prospects for Minds Abroad. We have recently launched brand new programs in exotic Asian locations such as Thailand, Cambodia and India. While many of these programs combine classroom education with volunteering and service learning activities and educational excursions, many are just travel only programs which will involve trips to places of historic and cultural interest. Some of these programs are also open to Chinese students.
What about the future of the industry? How do you think study abroad and international education will change over the next 10 years?
Zoe: The future of the study abroad industry definitely looks promising. There has been evidently a change in trend in the current study abroad industry. Now many international students are aiming to explore countries like India and China. We are living in the age of globalization and the breakneck speed in which China and India are progressing, they will attain superpower status in no time. These two countries have already become popular study abroad destinations in the world and in 10 years down the line, more and more international students will be flocking to China and India to master the local languages, as it will help them make the best use of the employment opportunities that these two countries will offer.
I volunteered at two locations while I was overseas with Minds Abroad: one was at an educational center for autistic children, and the other was teaching English to young kids at a school. Both experiences were fun, eye-opening, and I believe very beneficial to the kids. Minds Abroad staff actually took the bus with me to the school where I taught English on the first day so that I would know exactly where it is, how to get there myself, and get me situated with the adults working there! Personally, I found teaching English to be a slightly better experience.
Critical Feedback:
I wish that I had received more advice about teaching English before I was put in the classroom. This really wasn't a big problem, because I figured it out relatively quickly. These are young kids -- make English fun! They're more likely to be cooperative learning "play basketball!" and making a motion like they're shooting a basketball than they will be if you try to teach them strictly practical things, even if they're basic, like "How are you?", "Tomorrow is Thursday", etc. As I said, this was minor, and I highly, highly recommend the program!