Exchange report (Fall 2019) Jiao Tong University Antai College of Economics and Management

Candy Cho, Shuk Man BBA in Information Systems and Marketing

Part I – Monthly Activity Log

September

The first group of friends I met in Shanghai is a group of exchange students from Taiwan. Since exchange students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are arranged to live together while a big portion of them are Taiwanese, we have been close to each other and explored the city together, such as visiting TianZiFang and Old Town. Before the semester got busier, we had a short trip to Nanjing and had a long one to Qinghai Qinhuai River, Nanjing during the holiday for the National Day of China. Since Taiwanese have a tradition of having barbecue during the mid-autumn festival, we went to a barbecue shop near campus for celebration. The school also distributed mooncakes with school logo. There was a Mid-autumn roadshow with performances, games and traditional foods. Chaka Salt Lake, Qinghai

BBQ with Taiwanese exchange students Mid-autumn roadshow Botanical garden, SJTU’s Minhang campus During the class of the Introduction to Chinese Traditional Medicine, the professor brought us to the campus’ botanical garden for a field visit. He introduced different plants in the botanical garden, the origin of their names, medicinal values, ways of identifying them etc. It was a very interesting and beneficial lecture that I enjoyed very much.

October Although the month had been a bit busier with quizzes and assignments, there was still sufficient time available for exploring this fruitful city. Apart from visiting famous spots in the city centre such as the People’s Square, Yuyuan Garden,

Oriental Pearl Tower and , we also visited Xitang, The ancient town of Xitang which is a historic town next to Shanghai that only took an hour drive from our campus. During mid-October, there was an orientation night for all students in SJTU. Students who were new to the school, including freshmen and exchange students, could get tickets which were nearer to the stage. There were around 2000 audiences and I was completely amazed by the performances as well as how great a student-organised event could be, including the stage design, lighting, contents etc. Stage in the orientation night Luckily, I met a local friend I made during lectures when the audience was leaving, then I got to know more about the organizer – Art Centre (AC), and coincidentally they were having small-scale recruitment in the coming week. Through the interview, I got into the promotion team of AC and started my journey there. For each event, all members of AC could choose which group they want to join for the upcoming events, which allows us to try working on various areas with different colleagues. The only event left in that semester held by AC is the Stage design group and our neon sign with plant Oasis Music Festival 2019. I joined the stage design group which is responsible for making promotion decorations and stage designs including lighting and background videos for performances. To promote the event, we made a neon sign with plants at a subway exit in the Minhang campus, placed decorations next to a sports yard and drew a pavement graffiti on the roundabout in the east area of the campus. Since the roundabout had busy traffic during day times, it took us Pavement graffiti for promoting the Oasis Music Festival 4 nights to finish it. November

It was a busy month starting with the final exam and project of the hardest course I took in that semester, Database Principles and Application. As it took place in the first half of the semester, its final and the project’s deadline was on week 9. After the tough schoolwork, it was time for the AC’s Oasis Music Festival! As a member of the Staffs of POGO, the Universities’ Rock Concert, stage design group, I learned the skills from Oasis Music Festival 2019 seniors and edited a background video using Adobe Premiere within a week. Since the promotion team did not have sufficient members, I was also assigned to design the ticket for the festival. It was quite tough but I had great sense of accomplishment when I finally succeeded.

Staffs of Red in Sofa, Folk Concert, Oasis Music Festival 2019 Staffs of BeStrong, Rock concert, Oasis Music Festival 2019 Apart from the group’s duty, members can choose the role they were responsible for during the show to facilitate the process, and I applied for quite different posts among the 3 shows to learn and try a variety of duties. It was a remarkable journey to hold such a large- scale event that included public audiences, as well as having lots of “first times” such as being invited by a public audience to take picture with her, being praised by a band’s vocalist on stage and even being invited by a brand to their concert tour and sell souvenirs! The month ended with a trip travelling to “Arm labels” for identifying roles, Simatai Great Wall, Beijing Beijing with a 22-hours train ride. the concert’s ticket and publicity

December The course I enjoyed the most is the Aromatherapy and Wellness. The professor has a strong medical background and she taught it in a very scientific way, not only the main efficacies and the precautions of different essential oils but also their composition and the effects of different chemicals within that. It is still hard to believe that I was able to score full mark in an essay as well as gaining distinction and gifts from it. Before the preparation for finals, we tried to relax and refresh ourselves by hanging out at the Shanghai Film Park, Koreatown and Anyi Lane Christmas market. Since I had heard that people in the mainland do not celebrate Christmas, I had been expecting no festive atmosphere at all. However, the Christmas market did surprise Professor Wu, who taught Aromatherapy and Wellness me with fabulous decorations, live bands performing Christmas songs, various game and goods stalls, as well as food trucks that served traditional Christmas food such as turkey and warm red wine. Christmas week was packed with 3 final exams and 2 presentations. After dealing with all these, my Taiwanese, HK friends and I decided to celebrate Christmas by exchanging gifts among ourselves. One of us had her birthday in December and we celebrated it by surprising her with a cake and presents.

Anyi Lane Christmas Market Christmas Gift Exchange Friend’s Birthday Party It was also the month of Art Centre’s birthday which we celebrated with holding a birthday party games, performances and even creating an mv for it. As a member of the promotion team, I also designed and placed the order for part of the souvenirs of this event. I am so glad I joined the Art Centre, as the entire organisation is like Birthday party of the Act Centre a big family. Despite having different opinions, all “family members” were just working hard in the area that they are good at to achieve the same goal. January The final exam for the Corporate Responsibility and Ethics was in January, which made me spend more than a week studying the whole day in the library. The study atmosphere of SJTU is quite Number of visitors of one of the libraries similar to UST, but since there are a lot more students in SJTU in campus during the final exam period and they may prefer studying in the libraries even most of them have hall, places in SJTU libraries are more packed with students. Most of them occupied their seats on or before 9am. It was hard to find a seat in the afternoon, especially those with an electric socket. After the examinations, I hung out with different friends including locals that I met in lectures and in the Art Centre. Shanghai has become my second home and I really hope that I can have the chance to be back soon.

Had New Year Countdown Hang out to Xuhui Campus Enjoying hot pot with friends met in AC with local friends with Taiwanese exchange students Part II – General Exchange Information

1) Visa Procedures Hong Kong local students can enter Mainland China with Home Visit Permit only. 2) Orientation Activities There was an orientation session held for exchange students on the first day, but due to the bad weather conditions, our pickup shuttle was not able to arrive at the location before the session ended. The office’s representatives then sent us the ppt slides and a few reminders. Another one is the orientation night held by the Art Centre on 13 October. It was not specially held for exchange students and but everyone in SJTU. 3) International Services & Activities The pick-up service on the first day of exchange from airport to the location for registration was optional and students can apply beforehand through the Wechat group formed by the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Office. The office had also organized a cultural day trip to a relic and a forest garden in late November while a food and cultural gathering in late December. Unfortunately, I was not available on both dates and missed the chances. 4) Accommodations No application for accommodations is required, students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are arranged to live together. We are arranged to dorm X32, which is a hall that has been just renewed in the summer right before the semester. The first 3 floors were for year 1 medical students while 4th and 5th floors were us since not many Macau students apply exchange to SJTU, therefore it's very easy to meet Taiwanese in the dorm. The hall fee is rmb600 per semester, but HK student can apply for a “hundred-people plan” through SJTU which it can waive the hall fee once the application succeeded. Comparing with halls in UST, halls in SJTU have more rules to follow. No cooking is allowed, while electric devices such as hairdryer and humidifier are also forbidden. There was a room check on every Wednesday, and dormitory access control, which students have to be back by 12 am before the “dorm auntie” locks the door. It is fine if students staying outside dorm overnight, but if they decide to be back during midnight, it is better to message the auntie in the dorm’s group to ask her to wait for you if it is not too late, or else they have to ring the doorbell to wake the auntie up to open the door for them and a record will be made. The dorm has no lift and students need to walk up the stairs. The bathrooms are redesigned with doors that can lock, thermo ventilator and hairdryer, while hot water required payment through student card. Each room can rent a water drinking machine while the large bottled waters required students to carry up to their room themselves. To charge the air conditioner, students can either complete the process through an app or finish it by the machines on campus. 5) Courses Registration There is a course schedule website where users can find course information without login, but it’s not that user-friendly as it is required to wait 1 minute before another search. The system that shows real-time availabilities for each course and allows students to add-drop was available to exchange students starting on the first day of the term. However, local students already got access to that system prior to the day and the only round of course registration for exchange students is already the third round for local students. Since most courses are already very full when we first got in the system, we can apply to get in a specific course(s) by filling in a form provided by the exchange office but there is no guarantee and can only apply for 1-2 courses with strong reason. Since SJTU does not adopt the waitlist system, students have to monitor the system from time to time to check whether there is an available seat for the courses you want to take until the end of the add-drop period. There are classes that do not last for the whole semester, such as 1-8 weeks or 6-16 weeks, final will take place in 1-2 weeks right after the course ends, but results will be released at the end of the whole semester. 6) Teaching & Assessment Methods

Equivalent Equivalent Course Equivalent UST Course name Credits UST course UST course code course name code credits AM062 Consumer Behavior 2 MARK3420 Consumer Behavior 4 BU203 Corporate 2 MGMT2130 Business Ethics and 2 Responsibility and Social Responsibility Ethics BU320 Project 2 SACCUCORE Common Core Course Pending Management in Social Analysis review CS400 Database Principles 2 ISOM3260 Database Design and 4 and Application Administration PL028 Aromatherapy and 2 HMCCUCORE Common Core Course Pending Wellness in Humanities review PM005 Introduction to 2 HMCCUCORE Common Core Course Pending Chinese Traditional in Humanities review Medicine Exchange students are allowed to register whatever courses that have available seats, no matter which college it is offered by, the year of students it is targeted for, or the category the course belongs to. Local students usually take 30+ credits per semester, therefore the workload for each course would not be really high. Despite CS400 being a compulsory course for year 4 students majoring in computer science, I found the workload of other courses I took similar or a bit less than that in UST, perhaps it’s because they are for year 2 or common core courses. SJTU has started implementing Canvas but it is still in the primary stage, therefore not many teachers are familiar with it and they have their preferred ways of giving out ppt/handouts and communicating with students, such as in a Wechat group. 7) Finance & Banking People in mainland China nowadays rarely use cash but through the apps Alipay and Wechat pay, which a mainland bank account is required to bind with. I opened a bank account in the Bank of China on Minhang campus since it only required the student ID card and the Mainland Travel Permit for HK and Macau Residents, where banks outside campus required residential address document. 8) Climate Month Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Average temperature 24°C 19°C 13°C 7°C 4°C

Shanghai didn’t snow during my exchange period, and it is a lot less humid than HK leading to the summertime there is more comfortable. Temperature differences had been getting larger starting from late November. (Since there are fewer skyscrapers especially in Minhang,) the outdoor temperature is directly affected by the sun. usually is quite warm under sunshine but turn cool shortly when the sky turns dark. 9) Health & Safety There is a clinic in Minhang campus which is free of charge for students. The nearest hospital is the Fifth People’s Hospital of Shanghai, , which students who have more serious diseases or injuries usually go. Supermarkets and convenience stores in the Mainland are not allowed to sell medicines, but you can find them in licensed medicine stores. 10) Food No cooking is allowed in the dorm, while there are 6 student canteens and a few restaurants in the campus which served foods at cheap price with fair quality and variety of choices, but they are always mostly full and closed very early. There are also a few restaurants near the campus that we went for meals quite often. Ordering delivery is another common choice, which there are even places next to the dorm’s door specially designed for deliveries pick up. The 2 most popular delivery apps are MeiTuan and Ele.me, both of them have member systems that provide coupons while the discounts on the 2 platforms might differ. 11) Transportation Since the campus is very big, it is quite inconvenient since I don’t know how to ride a bicycle especially when most people know, some time we dine after regular meetings my local friends give me “free ride” on their “motorcycle”. It was quite scary for the first time, but I got used to it afterwards and find it exciting and became great memories. 12) Communication There was a telecommunication service provider’s counter in the school registration venue, which offered a data plan of 100rmb for a whole year with 100G per month. This favourable plan is only for students who are new to the school, which included freshmen and exchange students. However, it is quite complicated to use WIFI in the dorm. It requires a wireless modem and LAN wire per room which can be bought in school’s supermarkets or through online, then students can apply for the WIFI service on the online platform by filling in MAC address and IP address of the devices. The process can be quite confusing and took time. Locals usually communicate through WeChat, which is an app like WhatsApp that provides more extra functions. There are few points that are quite different with WhatsApp regarding the chatting function, including documents will be expired so the user has to download them before they are no longer available, and at most 9 pictures can be sent at a time. Students are required to download VPN if they wish to use apps such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Google in the mainland. I advise to prepare 2-3 in case the system is updated and some VPN is no longer working, some VPN requires mainland mobile which can be downloaded first and completed afterwards. It will be more convenient if both mobile and computer have installed VPN apps. 13) Sports & Recreation Facilities Besides the facilities that we also enjoyed in UST such as swimming pool, indoor gyms, tennis courts and running tracks, there are also bowling, cinema, karaoke and boardgames for students to relax. 14) Social Clubs & Networking Opportunities SJTU has around 300 clubs in total, together with some students’ organisation such as the Hundred Regiments Offensive is held every semester for associations to recruit new members, lasting for two days. However, it was held on 20-21 Nov, which is already in the second half of the semester and there was not much time left for a student who only exchanges for a semester like me. My exchange friends and I who have joined different clubs and associations are mainly through the referrals of local friends we met during classes. I have joined the Art Centre (AC), which is one out of the nine centres under the SJTU student union that held different schools’ annual events such as the orientation night, graduation party and singing competition. After the interview, I successfully joined the AC as a member of the promotion team. For each event, every member can apply for the group they want to join for the upcoming event and I decided to join the stage design group and have a fruitful time there during the whole process of organising the Oasis Music Festival. 15) Cautionary measures There are quite a lot of resorts that are not available for citizens from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. When planning to travel or staying overnight outside campus, it will be better to ask the customer service before making an appointment. 16) Other notes I suggest downloading local map apps such as Baidu map or GaoDe map. Even though a working VPN is connected, still Google Maps can no longer be helpful in the mainland as the GPS though

VPN is not that accurate.

Part III Items to Bring

Documents (Mainland Travel Permit for HK and Macau Residents, card for security assistance) Registration documents (SJTU’s offer letter, passport photos, copy of insurance, student ID card) Electric appliances (laptop, adaptor, chargers, earphones, power bank) Cash (better to bring a bit more than you need, as it’s not that easy to transfer money to mainland) Medicine, skin cares, daily necessities and clothing for both summer and winter

Part IV Useful links and contacts

Academic information service: https://i.sjtu.edu.cn/xtgl/login_slogin.html?language=zh_CN&_t=1567874501403 Course searching platform: http://electsys.sjtu.edu.cn/edu/lesson/LessonQuery.aspx Integrated information service: http://info.sjtu.edu.cn/index.aspx

Network & information center: http://en.net.sjtu.edu.cn/