On Wednesday, April 12 the ASCC Senate approved funding for an ad-hoc trip to Taiwan.
Board of Trustee member Dr. Shin Liu said, “The purpose of this program is to provide a cultural and language learning experience for students from the United States and Australia.”
The Taiwan Experience Education Program will be hosted by Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology located in Tainan, Taiwan.
The program is sponsored by Ministry of Education of Taiwan and Tainan City Government.
Twenty students from United States and twenty students fro Australia were selected to participate in this Study Abroad Program in Taiwan.
Students will take Chinese culture and language courses at the Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology during the first two weeks and then students will spend the next two weeks interacting with Elementary and Junior High students their culture and teach English.
“The program promotes students global awareness and appreciation of cultural diversity,” Liu said.
The program will run for a month from June 27 to July 27.
10 students from Cerritos will be going on this trip.
President of Cerritos College Dr. Jose Fierro said, “There are 20 spots, 50% are for Cerritos College and the rest are for UCI, Cal Poly Pomona, and Rio Hondo College.”
Dr. Liu will be traveling in the same flight to make sure students arrive safely and stay with them for the first week during the program.
Dorms will be provided to the students by Southern Taiwan University.
ASCC Senate will be funding for the students plane tickets.
The initial request for the fund is $13,000.
Monica Santiago, Political Science and Foreign language major, is one of the 10 students that are attending this trip and is extremely happy.
She’s passionate about learning about other cultures, she has been studying Chinese since an early age.
Santiago said, she went to Bangok last year for another educational program and she had to work 3 jobs to pay for her ticket and expenses on the trip.
“I’m truly grateful that the ASCC Senate passed the funding because this is big help for us and an big opportunity for us, we will be representing Cerritos internationally,”said Santiago.
Santiago said she didn’t know about this trip until her Chinese Professor Yiran Zhou encouraged her to apply to the program.
