Recently the School of Software Technology launched the Zhejiang University International Education-Research-Industry Program (ZIERIP), which integrates academic and cultural activities at ZJU and internship at top tech companies in China. The program is open to master/PHD students of top universities in the world, and this year’s participants include students from Stanford University, National University of Singapore and Imperial College London.

The first two weeks of the program are mostly lecture-based, covering a wide variety of topics, such as blockchain, Chinese martial arts, tea arts and other edgy technologies. “It’s a good mix of culture, company exposure, and lectures on different computer science topics. Very diverse…really relevant,” said Mya, a master student in math and science engineering at Stanford.

Notably, the program introduced a “partner project”: student volunteers from the School of Software Technology will accompany the foreign students during the first two weeks to help them better engage in the activities on campus.

“They join us in almost all the activities. We get to learn about the culture, how the School is structured, what their specializations and their research topics are. Sometimes we even talk about potential collaborations,” said a master student from NUS School of Computing.

Participants also gave very positive feedbacks about the companies that their visited in Hangzhou. “(At Alibaba) they’re very intentional about a lot of ways they set their campus, a lot of sculptures they have. And it seems they really care about the growth of their employees,” said Mya.

Cindy Wang, a master student in computer science at Stanford, looks forward to the coming internship at Alibaba. She will be working on machine-aided translation as an algorithm intern. The internship that last nine to ten weeks will provide students with a full insight into the companies at the essential departments.