CET Greater China

CET in Kunming has several defining features: very small class sizes, a language pledge, and Chinese roommates.

The Kunming program is distinct from other CET programs in that students in Kunming are placed in a city where very few locals speak English. This makes it easy to uphold the language pledge, and gives foreign students a sense of authentic Chinese culture, instead of being surrounded by Western influences. Furthermore, we were not overly affected by pollution, which is a rarity in modern China.

My day-to-day activities went like this: get up early to go for a run around the nearby lake (yep, you can go running outside in Kunming!). Come back, shower, and review characters for the quiz of the day. Go to class for four hours in a class of four students. Eat lunch in the cafeteria and then go to a one-on-one tutorial for half an hour. Work, either in my room, the common activity room in the dormitory, or at a local cafe. Go exploring around the campus or in the city center. Come back for dinner with friends and roommates. Work a bit more. Sleep. Repeat.

If you're looking to become fluent in Chinese, this is the only way to do it. The only students who struggled with the program were those who weren't committed to improvement. It takes dedication and hard work to get through this program, but if you have the drive, I can't recommend this experience highly enough.

CET Harbin is one of those programs where, especially if you haven't taken a language pledge program before, you may go in apprehensive or even a little scared. But everyone I know who came out of the program wish they had gone to Harbin sooner or stayed for at least another term. It really is a wonderful opportunity if your goal is to massively increase your foreign language capabilities (in this case Mandarin and the Dongbei dialect), and immerse yourself in Chinese culture. Go to CET Harbin, you won't regret it!

CET Harbin was a life-changing experience. I find Chinese a wonderfully delightful language to speak, and being able to converse with just about anyone on the street using what I learned in class was wonderful and great for building my confidence. Prior to going to the country, I thought there was only one path for me, government service and then becoming an interpreter, but going to China took off the blinders and exposed me to countless opportunities in all aspects of life. Although there were challenges, working nonstop in a foreign language can be tear-inducing at the best of times, I made lifelong friends, gained a healthy dose of perspective and ate chicken feet. Who would have guessed?

One highlight of my trip was this Chun Bing restaurant that my roommate introduced me and my friends to. The food is amazing and really cheap. There would usually be about 5 of us going to the restaurant, so we would be able to order about 4 different dishes. My personal favorite was DiSanXian, which had eggplant, potatoes, and peppers. Others really enjoyed the egg dishes.

Please see my review comments in the "how could this program be improved" box below .... thanks! The system somehow would not allow me to copy and paste some observations about my experience that I recorded earlier.

Overall, CET was a very positive experience for me. Although sometimes during the program I would feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of work, and frustrated by my perceived lack of progress, by the end of the program I was quite glad to have done it, and also feel that it helped my Chinese immensely. Looking back, the only real problem was the food. I quickly got tired of the food in Harbin.

The third week of the program I found myself crying in the resident director's office. I had arrived at the program 2 weeks late, and had to catch up. I came into the program with a bare minimum language ability but with knowledge of Mandarin.

Over the course of 3 and a half months I raised up to an intermediate level. I now work and live in Beijing, China and I would never have been able to do that without fighting through the pain, tears, and suffering of learning a language as hard (for an English only speaking person) as Mandarin Chinese.

I was blessed with people who cared about me, wanted to see me do well, and kept subtly pushing me along the way towards completing the program. The day I graduated from CET has been one of the biggest and brightest moments of my life and I would encourage anyone wanting to learn Mandarin to do the same thing as I did and attend the CET Intensive Language Mandarin program.

It is better to go into a study abroad experience with little to no expectations or preconceived notions. You are there to learn and have fun, not to worry about whether or not you will fit in. Most times you won't. Which is fine, but just be courteous and pay attention to social cues. You are representing your school and country, so even if you are stumbling drunk around the bar district at 2am, be sure you take care of each other and not hurt anyone. Other countries have much different prisons than America, most of the time they are much worse. Don't be that kid.