CET Academic Programs Reviews

I forced my tired eyes open and caught sight of a twelve-year-old boy stepping up to bat in a baseball game. My thoughts quickly returned and I found myself back in my place on first base covered in dirt stains. The young boy before me was named Ye Xiu Wen. His family belonged to our church congregation and I was assigned once a week to visit with his family and provide food, care, and other support. Every time I would greet Ye Xiu Wen with an enthusiastic greeting in Mandarin Chinese, “Hello, my friend, how’s it going?” I would only receive a blank stare and a slow head-nod in response, evidence that my words had once again failed to produce any meaning. I quickly found the language to be a barrier in building up a relationship with this young man, but one day made great strides when I discovered his love for baseball.
I had found an old orange beginning to rot in the bottom of my backpack. I removed the moldy mess and tossed it to Ye XIu Wen in a joking gesture. He caught the orange and pitched it right back at me. I grabbed it and this time wound up in an exaggerated mimic of the pitchers you would usually see on TV. Ye Xiu Wen didn’t miss a beat and grabbed a nearby stick and immediately wound up for a swing. I didn’t think he would actually hit it, so I pitched the orange directly his way. I was wrong. His contact sent exploding remains of my orange in every direction leaving behind a cloud of citrus. Our eyes met and lit up. It was the first time we communicated. We quickly converted the neighboring rice field into a baseball diamond and made a weekly tradition of playing backyard ball, inviting all the local children to join us in our competitions. Today was game day and as Ye Xiu Wen approached the plate my competitive nature took over. I was ready.
Knees bent, back arched, broken pool stick in hand this kid stood poised and ready for action. The pitch was made and yesterday’s edition newspaper - wadded into a ball and, bound in duct tape - went hurling towards the batter. A giant swing followed by contact sent our makeshift baseball high into the air. I took off towards the pile of rice stocks that marked second base, laughing all the while at the comical sight before me. The wind was in our favor and carried Ye Xiu Wen’s hit to the far outskirts of the rice fields. I could now hear his excited footsteps close behind me as I rounded second, my black shoes collecting new stains with every step. It was so refreshing, the humid air running across my face, my perfectly combed hair now rebelliously running free in the wind, and my new friend and I united in our sprint home. After rounding the bases safely I turned back to find my teammate in a struggle for home plate. His skinny legs, crafted from a simple rice-based diet, were in full stride, propelling that little body home. A dramatic final step was made casting up a patch of dirt. Through the cloudy aftermath the call was made: “Safe!”
I looked over to see the stern, determined face melt and give way to laughter. It was the first time I had ever seen him laugh. Such a small, seemingly insignificant image, yet it was one that resonated and burned within me. For the first time since I had arrived, I finally felt like I belonged. Ye Xiu Wen was no longer himself, no longer a young boy with a dream to be the first in his family to graduate high school, no longer a boy with the burden of taking care of a single, disabled, and bed ridden father and two sisters, no longer a boy with the responsibility for providing for his family’s financial needs, no longer the boy laughed at in school for the deformities on his face. No, he had risen above all that and in the moment he was a baseball player.

When coming to China for study abroad I knew that I would be challenged in my language study and hoped to learn more about Chinese history and culture, but I didn't anticipate to meet the wonderful people that I did. CET Chinese Studies and Internship in Beijing seems to attract people genuinely interested and passionate about China and Chinese, but the people that attend all share similar levels of language. Through shared experiences, such as travel, we built relationships that will last us long into our careers. Students held a range of issues related to China, such as Chinese Traditional Medicine, Chinese Military, Chinese Music, Chinese Economics, etc. All of these passions allowed for us to learn from each other and enhance each other's experience abroad. CET really is an amazing program, and if you allow yourself, you will meet some of the most amazing friends!

Prior to my semester abroad, anytime someone mentioned Brazil my mind conjured stereotypical images. Beaches, bikinis, caipirinhas, dancing in the streets. What I wasn't picturing was a world-class city teeming with a wide range of cultural life and international companies and ex-pats from all corners of the globe. But this is what Sao Paulo is like. It's a giant, bustling, highly international city whose limits and skyscrapers stretch far off into the distance, farther than the eye can see. My semester here was incredibly fun, but also challenging. I really enjoyed the flexibility of the classes, which enabled me to travel around the continent as I had hoped. Although I was underwhelmed by the quality of the local university, the real reason I came to Sao Paulo was to learn Portuguese, something that I successfully accomplished thanks to the strength of CET’s Portuguese language program in-country. I made great friends with local Brazilians, especially thanks to my local roommates who were more than willing to help me with Portuguese and show me around the city. I attended cool cultural and international events, such as the Economist’s Brazil Summit, and did my fair share of dancing in the street. I’d go back again in a heartbeat!

I loved my study abroad experience with CET. I met some incredible people during my time here, had a lot of fun in the confusion and misunderstandings of the language barrier, and greatly improved my Chinese skills. This program will challenge you, force you way beyond your comfort zone, and will support your endeavors of learning Chinese. I'm so grateful for my time at CET. I will never forget this wonderful experience.

CET did a great job taking care of us and making sure that we had the right connections/internships and learning experience. However, I found the program too short for all the complex discussion topics that we went into. Each week we would learn about a different public health/development issue and I felt like we only had the time to scrape the surface of these problems. However, besides that, Vietnam is an amazing country-so full of culture and beauty!

CET is neither easy nor hard academically, neither over-the-top nor unremarkable socially, neither too serious nor too blasé programatically. It's simply a well-balanced program, full of students from diverse backgrounds. I was a gap year student in Beijing in 2009 and felt welcomed and supported by staff and classmates, many of whom were years older than me. I look back on CET fondly as a program that fostered connections among roommates and peers.

As an aside, two of the couples in a 30-odd-person program got engaged five years later. It can and does happen!

I loved my semester in Beijing. CET's rigorous Mandarin classes quickly elevated my language skills. By the end, I was thinking and dreaming in Mandarin!

The thing I cherish the most from my time in Beijing is the relationship that I created with my roommate, a local college student. We are still in touch today and often help each other with our various homework.

Another great thing about CET was our opportunity to travel over fall break. I went with CET students to Kunming where we hiked Huashan and a few other mountains. It was so exciting to use my language skills to travel on my own in China and CET made me ready to do that.

This program was an amazing experience in every single way, and one I would recommend to any college student, regardless of academic background, as a right of passage. I studied Mandarin in college for the heck of it -- it did not fulfill any requirements and was not part of my major, but I decided to take on this program as a personal challenge. Not only did my Mandarin skills skyrocket, I developed in a million personal ways, too.

Studying abroad in Harbin was an experience! I was able to learn so much about Northern Chinese culture, as well as experience other cultures that are prominent in the North. Visiting the museums and memorials was astonishing, Harbin is a historically and culturally rich area. I found it interesting that I was able to learn so much about Russian, Jewish, and German culture. One of my fondest memories was when we stumbled upon a German restaurant that wasn't far from campus. It was a lively restaurant that happened to be having live karaoke. It was a wonderful night where we were able to drink delicious beer that was a brewed in the restaurant, enjoy some snacks, and the live music. As I look back on my time in Harbin, that was one of my favorite memories.

I decided to study abroad CET at the spur of the moment during last spring, as a 2nd-year student in Chinese. There were many good things about CET - I had many amazing experiences in Beijing, including facilitated trips to the Great Wall, as well as my own ventures to different places such as the Summer Palace and Lama Temple (all of which I highly recommend!). Most of the staff was incredibly kind and competent.

However, I will say there were many parts of CET I was frustrated or dissatisfied with - people in our program found that internships were often lacking in some way (or didn't have them until late in the program); trips were sometimes a bit unorganized; often, people had serious problems with their Chinese roommates. In general, it seemed like the program was over-capacity with the 25 students we had this summer. For the amount paid, I feel like the program should have gone a lot smoother than it did.

That being said, I had a wonderful relationship with my roommate, and good or bad, I took away a lot from the program. Just do your research before applying - I would also suggest perhaps finding an internship on your own before coming :)