Travels in Beijing
Ratings
Review
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 :)
1) Most of the staff was excellent - however, our internship adviser, Nadia Sbaihi, seemed to really struggle placing our group this year. I would suggest limiting the amount of students, if the quality and quantity of internships must be sacrified.
2) In-city reimbursements seemed short - at one point, our director told us they could not be used for movies, which is odd considering they are so popular and a wonderful way to look at Chinese culture. Perhaps that money would be better used for transportation costs, since this is an internship program, and some internships were 1-2 hours away.
3) Chinese roommates should undergo thorough cultural training. There were several times when roommates said extremely inappropriate and offensive things to us, including things about weight and race. Understanding of course we are in a different environment, I would just suggest perhaps cultural awareness should be a two-way street.