（Asia University, Taiwan） The summer vacation is coming! In this summer, more than 200 Asia University (AU) faculty members and students will participate in international activities, including joining volunteer programs, studying abroad, working as interns, getting involved in academic exchanges, etc. The countries they will go to include America, England, Singapore, Spain, Malaysia, etc. For example, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at AU will send nine students to Singapore to participate a one-year intern program at Chang Airport in Singapore. The Department of Early Childhood Education will select four students to go to the Buddha’s Light Private School at Dallas, Texas in the USA for practical training of teaching. And 44 teachers and students of AU will go to Malaysia to work as international volunteers at nursing homes and remote villages.

The dean of the College of International and Cross-strait Education at AU, Prof. Chih-Yang Huang, said, “Fourteen students of AU will go to study abroad at the University of the West in the USA, learning language skills, sales techniques, cultural communication, and brand-image management, etc. In addition, 21 students will study abroad at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain from July 12, and 65 students will go to Malaya University to take short-term all-English courses, to conduct international voluntary service works, and to experience life of the Malaysia tradition.”

On the other hand, 100 students from Malaya University will come to AU for a stay from July 28 to August 21. They will take the courses of multimedia, game, and creative-product designs, finance marketing of Taiwan, etc., at AU. They will also travel around the island to feel of Taiwan’s scenery and learn Chinese culture.

Furthermore, 45 students of AU were selected by the Ministry of Education to be international-exchange students this summer. Specifically, for these students, the Chang Airport of Singapore offers the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at AU a quota of nine intern students, and Zin-Yan Dai and Shin-Ru Tsai, etc. were selected accordingly to go there to broaden their international vison. The Department of Early Childhood Education is granted a quota of four students out of the 45, and the selected students will go to the Buddha’s Light School at Dallas to become intern students. In addition, the Department of International Business has a quota of nine students and will select students to go to the companies of Eu Yan Sang and Y.S.P. Southeast Asia Holding Berhad in Malaya to take trainings. Finally, the Department of Finance and the Department of Creative Product Design are allowed to send three students to the company of CLICASIA in Barcelona, Spain for intern training.

To say more, 24 students of AU will go to Michigan University at Flint in the USA, Lapland University in Finland, Northampton University in England, Malaya University in Malaysia, Barcelona University in Spain, and Sejong University in Korea to take part in academic exchange activities. Relatedly, it is mentioned that two students Chun-Yi Zhu and Yi-Zhen Jiang from the Department of Leisure and Recreation Management have already entered the Business & Hotel Management School in Swiss to pursue double degrees in hospitality.

Worth to mention as well is that AU students have been conducting international volunteer works in Malaysia for the past five years. In this summer, again 24 students were selected by the school; and led by the director of the Service Learning Section of the Office of Student Affairs Su-Cheng Ro and Professor Hsin-Huei Wu from the Department of Psychology, the students went to several places in Malaysia to give voluntary services to high-school students and the elder people.

Nonetheless, faculty members and students from the Department of Social Work have been offering international volunteer works in remote villages in Cambodia in recent two years. In this summer, an international volunteer team of 17 students to work in Cambodia was formed by students from the three Departments of Social Work, Leisure and Recreation Management, and Foreign Languages and Literature. Led by a student manager Ching-Yi Jung from the Department of Social Work, the team will go to the village of TAOM to conduct various voluntary service works.

This summer is really a great time of international activities of AU!