Sharing personal experiences of

the Summer School for Francophone students 2023

Corinne CHEN, France, international student, July 2023

I would like to first take this opportunity to thank Tongji University and Le Centre d’employabilité francophone of Shanghai for hosting and organizing this 2023 edition of the summer school. It is a huge honour for me to participate to this summer school and I finished this summer school with great learnings.

I would like, in this report, to express my feelings and my insights about these 6 days of intense but fun discovery of Innovation and Culture in China.

We started the first day with a visit of Shanghai, I discovered a lot of things about the architecture and especially how certain details on the buildings show how Shanghai got modernized. I was surprise to learn that by looking at some straight lines on some buildings or by looking at the shape of some windows, we were able to see modernity and same French inspiration. I thought it was a nice way to dive into the summer school as we were learning about the city that was hosting this program.

Then the second day was the opening ceremony and it was a memorable moment. All the students were wearing the same summer school t-shirt and it was nice learn about the effort that was put into place for this summer school. We also had some workshops from different innovation actors of Shanghai that day.

The third day was particularly memorable for me because there was one of my favorite activities. We visited the beautiful Istituto Maragoni and we learned how fashion is something that is always in movement and changing throughout the fashion cycles but also how some classics pieces of clothing has traveled throughout the years and people still wear them. I think fashion resonates well with innovation and culture because there are new ways of making fashion with AI for instance but still, we can see some aspect of cultural and traditional clothing.

The fourth day, I discovered a very traditional culture heritage of China which is the Dragon Dance. It was really nice to see that young people are still making this tradition perpetual and still learning about the dance. Even tough I did not grow up in China, I still felt very proud about this Dragon dance heritage that the entire world associates to China. It was very enjoyable to also learn some steps of the dragon dance.

On the fifth day, we visited the College of Design and Innovation and I was really impressed by how the students from Tongji University were creative and hardworking. We saw some art work and wood work pieces which were really amazing.

On the last day, we visited Chuncui Jewelry and it was a very pleasant and healing experience. We learned a lot about high end jewelleries and we could really feel the Chinese culture though these precious gems. I really appreciated the time dedicated to make our own piece of jewelry.

To conclude, I am really grateful for this summer school. I love the courses and the activities and it will be an unforgettable experience for me. I hope that there will be even more students applying for this summer school next year and I highly recommend this summer school.

2023年同济大学法语学生暑期学校（UEE）是“法语世界就业竞争力促进中心”项目和AUF全球学生社团网络（CLEF）框架下开展的活动之一，于7月8日至15日在上海举行。本次暑期学校以“创新创业与传统文化“为主题，招募了来自越南、法国和中国的15名学员，通过一系列讲座、参观和交流活动，以及围绕主题完成小组课题，增进同学们对中国传统文化的了解和对创新创业理念的认识。本次暑期学校也得到了外事办公室、留学生办公室、同济大学创新创业学院、创业谷、创新创业控股公司、就业指导中心、学生龙狮运动协会、国际文化交流学院等单位的大力支持。