In the courtyard behind Knight Law Center on Thursday, five University law students received final advice in preparation for a two-month academic trip to China.
Nearly 200 pounds of donated law books were divided between the students, who will carry them to China. Program coordinator Steve Barnes reminded them to bring their Pepto-Bismol and Lonely Planet travel guides to China.
On May 13, these law students will travel to Harbin, China, to participate in a one-of-a-kind academic program in which law students will team up with Chinese faculty and students at the Harbin Institute of Technology.
Unlike study abroad programs, in which students are often teamed with American faculty and remain in groups with other American students, “these students will be tethered in with Chinese students and faculty, doing collaborative stuff,” Barnes said.
While in Harbin, students will teach legal English to Chinese law students, collaborate with faculty in performing legal research and receive private Chinese lessons from their peers and lectures on the Chinese legal system from faculty.
“There is an intense academic purpose, but it is a citizen-to-citizen exchange,” Barnes said.
“It will be great to meet Chinese law students, who are usually younger than American law students, and “really see and understand the differences of what they’re going through and what we’re going though,” program participant Nicholas Burke said.
University law student and program participant Laura Smith, who has traveled abroad before, said she looks forward to sight-seeing with Chinese students and visiting parts of Harbin she normally may not see.
Another student participant, Robert Senh, who is Chinese but has never visited the country, said he feels a spiritual connection to China but also feels detached from his heritage.
“I can’t speak Mandarin, so I’m sure I’ll witness a lot of ‘double-take’ when I speak to people,” Senh stated in a press release.
Barnes began organizing the program earlier this year after returning from a one-year stint as a law professor at HIT.
Students did not have to apply for the program; it was offered to all law students. The students first heard of the program from a mass e-mail.
An informational meeting was held in March and students discovered they were going just a few weeks ago.
HIT will provide housing for the students, who will stay in a dormitory on campus. Students are responsible for all other expenses, but they were told to budget about $2,500 for the trip, excluding air fare.
Barnes hopes the program will continue and calls this trip “a very modest entry into student exchange and scholar exchange.”