Renewable energy summer school: a fruitful trip
Conor, one of the nine international students who were admitted into the first ever Renewable Energy Summer School, has enjoyed his time at ZJU working with the researchers here.
"I came to this program to do research but also to learn a little bit about China. I've really enjoyed that. Different people in my lab are incredibly inclusive and we've done a lot of good research together, which is important to me," said Connor from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Organized by ZJU’s College of Electrical Engineering, the summer school lasts from July 1 to July 21 this year. Nine students from five countries enjoyed the 20-day journey of renewable energy research and traditional Chinese culture experience on and outside campus.
"This is the first time that the College has held summer school program. We hope to establish a sustainable research platform and expand research cooperation with top universities through the program," said XU Wenyuan, the program leader.
Students were divided into several research groups based on their research interests. Topics they have been working on include "Intelligent System Security Research", "Fundamental Study on Wireless Charging System for Electric Vehicles", "Friendly Interactive Systems between Power Grids and Urban Electricity Consumers", etc.
Six professors, SHEN Jianxin, XU Wenyuan, DING Yi, LI Wuhua, MENG Jun and WU Lijian from College of Electrical Engineering serve as their instructors. Local graduate students from the labs of these instructors also joined the groups to work together with the international students.
"I got a lot of creative ideas from my instructor and I also learnt about interdisciplinary research from the lecture 'Hardware based Lightweight Authentication for IoT Applications in the Smart World' delivered by Prof. QU Gang." said Sharaf, a student from University of South Carolina.
Upon their arrival, the students were attracted by the beautiful scenery on Yuquan Campus, which is just located in the West Lake Scenic Area. Do Tuan, a student of Sorbonne University Association of France, went climbing Laohe Mountain near the campus on the first day.
I really enjoy the scenery while standing on top of the mountain and I like the traditional Chinese buildings, said Do Tuan. Last year I attended a summer school in France, but this year's summer school in China is very different. I not only had some scientific research, but also attended many cultural activities. And I was surprised at Chinese tea culture. It was interesting to learn how to make tea.
Byung Hoon, a student from University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, has once lived in China for a few years. However, the cultural expedition is still quite informative for him. "We went to silk museum, sword museum, food museum in Hangzhou, and also went to the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal. Although I have lived in China for several years, I didn't know much about Chinese culture and history. This time I really learnt a lot."
The program also includes visits to Hikvision and Alibaba, two leading Chinese companies based in Hangzhou. In Alibaba, students experienced face recognition, 3D shopping, and cash-free shopping technology. One of the students, Batuhan Hangün, even experienced cooking dishes. There are so many good things in China that I didn’t expect to see. The company is developing fast and I am interested in future cooperation with Chinese companies, said Batuhan.
“We hope the program will help the students to learn about Chinese culture, understand Chinese value and promote cultural exchange among different backgrounds,” said SHEN Jianxin, associate dean of the College. “It also aims to develop their research skills and make connections with potential academic partners from their universities and countries, and even more, to attract more international students to join our campus for further studies.”