The Department of Public and International Affairs  The Department of Public and International Affairs

Study Tour/Summer School 2018

The University of British Columbia (UBC) was as the partner institution in AIS Study Tour to Canada, this study tour well balanced both the academic and cultural exploration aspects. Students were expected to be able to apply their discipline-specific knowledge and skills in assessment tasks; use their social and communication skills in social activities; and understand Canadian culture and society better. All these have been successfully fulfilled with evidence of students’ reflective reports and as well as their videos.

The tour consisted of three major parts: 1) A package of two academic courses; 2) Socio-cultural activities; and 3) fieldtrips and visits. To cater for the board interests of our students’ major studies and streams, three packages were selected for their own choice. They were:

Package A) Global Migration, Local Communities: Asian Canadian Histories
  • Is Asia in Vancouver: Academic Perspectives
  • Is Asia in Vancouver: Community-Based Research
Package B) International Finance, Trade and Politics
  • International Trade and Financial Markets
  • Dynamics of Democracy and Global Uprisings
Package C) From Stage To Screen: how Vancouver ‘plays’ to a Global Audience
  • From Drama to Theatre: How Does a Play Mean?
  • Documentary & the City

According to the grade letter issued by UBC, our students did quite well especially those in package H. All of them had passed all courses.

Socio-cultural activities included having various sports activities with UBC and other foreign university students; social events included film watching, berry picking and so forth. Students also organized other social gathering activities such as a night-out for firework, fun cooking at the student dormitories etc.. Most of them expressed that their social skills had been improved.

Field trips to China Town, Gulf of Georgia Cannery, Richmond Night Market, Museum of Anthropology and visits to the Rockies, Whistler and Victoria had deepened their understanding about the place, the people and their way of living.

Since 2016, "AIS3810K Study Tour (Korea)" has been offered as 3 credit bearing course. The course aims to provide an intensive Korean language & culture immersion programme to enhance the participant’s Korean language proficiency and insights into Korean culture. In synergy with formal programme, various learning activities (culture lectures, workshops and field trips) are offered to provide hands-on learning.

In Summer of 2018, total 46 students participated in the tour. This 10 week intensive programme was co-organized by Institute of International Education, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, South Korea. As seen from post-tour sharing session, participants were very satisfied with their great accomplishments from the study tour—such as obtaining higher proficiency in Korean language, developing healthy, independent living skills and building up global friendships with Korean language buddies and fellow classmates.

Focusing both on Japanese language study and research fieldwork, the tour’s objective is to improve Japanese proficiency and deepen understanding of various aspects of traditional/contemporary Japan. Following the successfully-funded programme in consecutive years, the Japan Summer Study Tour 2018 is the third year we hold this as a credit-bearing course with 60% subsidy from the University.

On 28 June 2018, our group of 20 students started the study tour in Japan. This credit-bearing course included 50-hour language tutorials in the morning session and 30-hour fieldtrips in the afternoon session. Participants in the tour are provided opportunities to directly experience different cultural events such as Kagura-mai (dancing performance at shrines), Ikebana (flower arrangement), and Hanabi-taikai (firework festival). Opportunities to interact with Kanagawa University students have also been incorporated into the tour.