Nueva Exchange Program celebrates its eighth year
Once again, the SMIC Private School is participating in the annual Nueva Exchange Program. For those who don’t know what the program is, our school sends students to the United States to not only experience the culture and explore, but also spend a week at the Nueva School — located in the Bay area, San Francisco, California — to experience Western life and learning. In return, the Nueva School sends their students here to experience Chinese culture and education.
The program started in 2010 under the direction of Dr. Becky Shih with the purpose of promoting the importance of global citizenship among members of both schools, and has continued every year since then. This year, 7th and 8th grade students from both SMIC-I and the Chinese Track can participate in the program.
The trip will be split up into two parts and last roughly two weeks—from January 27th to February 8th. During the first half of the trip, students will embark on a cultural trip to San Francisco, visiting many famous cultural and educational sites like Silicon Valley, Alcatraz, and Fisherman’s Wharf. The students will also be able to visit major colleges in the area, such as Stanford and UC Berkeley. “There is no better way that I can think of to experience student life in the Bay Area and touring California in two weeks than the Nueva Student Exchange,” recommended another participant, Sunny Hu (12A).
On February 1st, students will begin their stay with a host family, and accompany the resident student to their classes at the Nueva School. Besides standard subjects such as Science, Math, English and History, exchange students will take part in unique classes and activities with a focus on Western culture. For example, in previous years students were able to take rock climbing classes and learn how to play steel drums.
Ginger Zhang (‘16), a past participant in the program, had this to say: “Your host family takes you to whatever activities they usually do. I went to off-campus volleyball practice and a Chinese food restaurant. Other people in my group got to go to the mall and In-N-Out. So, essentially, make sure you either get a host family that does activities you want to do, or tell them when you get there what you’d like to see.”
In May of next year, students from the Nueva School will travel to SMIC to participate in an exchange of culture and learning. In previous years, Nueva exchange students have visited the Bund and learned to bargain in the black-market near the Science and Tech area.
In total, the program usually costs 32,000 RMB; however, SMIC has provided a 3,000 RMB grant to applicants in order to encourage more participation.
The Nueva Exchange Program is more than a program, it’s an opportunity—and one that comes highly rated. “The program was culturally immersive and [it] perfectly balanced academics with recreation,” Ginger concluded.
Although applications for this year are no longer being accepted, look out for this program next year if interested.
Featured Image courtesy of ABC Studios
Caption: 2014 participants visit ABC newsroom