Taipei Spring 2026 (Intensive Track)

Studying abroad in Taiwan was probably the most fun I've had during a college semester. I had so much free time to explore the city because Chinese classes only ran everyday until 11:10am and I only had one other class on Monday evenings. I learned that during all this free time and the weekends, I really enjoy solo traveling. I was able to explore so much of the island in my free time, and because Taiwan is so safe I learned how to enjoy solo traveling. It was honestly so freeing to be able to go travel an hour or two into the mountains or to the coast by myself and not feel worried about safety or transportation, as the public transportation is also excellent! Because the program houses you in apartments off site of the campus, all the CET students became excellent users of the many modes of public transportation. I really enjoyed this because it made me take in the city more as I often had to travel on foot or bike a lot more, versus at home in the US where I just drive everywhere. It was also great that the Chinese language department at NTU is about a 3 minute walk from alleyways filled with cheap food options. Often a lot of the CET students would gather in the hallways after class and all walk over to eat lunch together, which was really nice and a good way to make friends with people outside of your class. I also made a lot of friends due to the CET hosted activities. Two of my friends and I actually won an award at the end of the program banquet for going to the most CET hosted events. These are at no extra charge and were so much fun because then I wouldn't have to do any planning and just go along with their schedule. I especially enjoyed going to hike teapot mountain on the northeastern coast with CET. I also loved the language partner program and I requested two language partners as well. I specifically requested CET to match me with at least one partner who likes hiking, and they paired me very well, one of my language partners had a goal to hike every peak in Taipei and New Taipei City during their four years at NTU and my other language partner also enjoyed hiking so all three of us went hiking together on many occasions. And of course, the Mandarin learning component of this program is excellent. My professor at NTU was incredible, I really enjoyed going to her class and she fostered a really nice class environment where all of the students got along together. I really like that the textbooks we use are written by teachers at universities in Taipei, so the language we learn is very useful in Taiwan, and includes a lot more common words and grammar that is more local. Overall, the program is great and has a lot of amazing aspects, especially for those who want to explore the island during their time!