Bryant students spend summer in China

Bryant seniors serve as interns with a Chinese company and as guides for the Bryant-Lingnan and STARTALK programs.

Two summers ago, Andrew Lambert ’08 (Limerick, ME) and Robert Fox ’08 (Norwell, MA) got their first taste of China during a two-week visit as part of the inaugural Bryant-Lingnan Summer Exchange Program.

This past summer the pair returned to China. They started as program assistants with the Bryant-Lingnan exchange, then they interned with a Chinese company, and finally they were guides for STARTALK, a first of its kind program in Rhode Island that immersed local high school students in the Chinese culture and then brought them to China.

“I learned so much after working and living in China,” says Fox. “I expanded my understanding of the language and culture, learned how business is conducted, and found out so much about myself.”

For Lambert, whose hometown has a population under 2,300, his first visit to China was also his first time abroad. By stepping out of his comfort zone, Lambert says he is more outgoing and able to see things with a different perspective.

“Being immersed in the culture is what is going to help you learn more,” says Lambert.

After serving as mentors and student guides for the second Bryant-Lingnan exchange, Lambert and Fox worked as interns at the Beijing Zhonghe Science and Technology Development Company.

The pair helped edit and translate installation and instruction manuals to be used in English-speaking countries. They also produced PowerPoint presentations that are used during sales pitches and created an English version of an instructional DVD.

It was the Lingnan exchange that whet Fox’s appetite to go back to China. For two weeks during the summer before his junior year, he was able to practice his Chinese and learn about the culture by interacting with the locals, using public transportation, and bartering in the local markets.

“Without taking part in the Lingnan exchange, I don’t know if I would have been motivated to commit an entire summer to an internship in Beijing,” says Fox.

While Lambert and Fox were immersed in Chinese culture nearly 6,800 miles away, back at Bryant, 50 local high school students were taking part in the STARTALK program. The intensive two-week language and culture day camp was offered by Bryant’s U.S.-China Institute and funded by the federal government’s new National Security Language Initiative, which is aimed at improving the understanding of languages not widely taught in the United States.

Betsy Hart, associate director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland and head of the STARTALK program, told the participants and their families it was an exciting time to be learning Chinese.

“To be successful in a language, you have to begin learning at an early age,” she says. In the future, variations of the program will be introduced at middle and elementary schools.

After learning for two weeks at Bryant, 28 high schools students had the opportunity to travel to China for two weeks. The students returned to Bryant in September to compete in a Jeopardy-like competition as part of a weeklong celebration to commemorate the opening of Bryant’s Confucius Institute.

Cheleen Burke, a sophomore at Cumberland High School, was among the student who traveled to China.

“It was an amazing experience and I want to do it again next year,” she says.