On July 17th, 2020, 22 students from ZJU-SOM, completed their Cambridge Online Summer Program. In the context of the global outbreak of COVID-19, the program is designed for SOM-ZJU undergraduates, and aims to broaden the students’ international horizon and stimulate them to think out of the box.

Cambridge Online Summer Program consists of academic lectures, after-class retrospection and reflection, interviews with students from Cambridge, etc. The program sparkled new ideas, hastened students’ understanding and deepened their insight.

Online Opening

On opening ceremony, Dr. Eden Yin greeted the students and encouraged them to actively participate in discussion. Gladly, with Dr. Yin’s encouragement, the students had made a huge difference and been able to bravely express their thoughts, confusion and disagreement in just one week. During the five-day online program, the students took lectures in popular topics such as AI, Green energy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, English literature and so on. All the lectures are delivered by the leading figures in academia from the University of Cambridge.

Mr. David Gill gives lecture on “Cambridge Phenomenon”

The first lecture was given by Mr. David Gill, who led the students to explore the unique "Cambridge Phenomenon", which started from the high-tech industrial clusters in Cambridge and ended with different thinking modes between China and the Western worlds. Following with Dr. Stuart’s thought-provoking lecture on green energy, which caused a heated debate among students on carbon crisis and solutions, as well as how to promote and to solve the limitations of new energy. Other instructors also delivered brilliant and impressive lectures. Prof. Impullitti analyzed the current macroeconomy after Brexit; Dr. Willson-Lee displayed the charm lying in Shakespeares works; Prof. Daugman raised a prospective world brought by Artificial Intelligence; Prof. Burnard and Ms. Andersen promoted students to explore, reflect, challenge and disrupt their definition of creativity and Dr. Yin talked about brand globalization strategies in the intelligent era.

As You Like It, William Shakespeare

The after-class brainstorming was the most exciting part of the program for the students. With Dr. Yin’s instruction, the students will discuss what they’ve learned, such as who could be the Shakespeare of China and how can Chinese culture go global. During the brainstorm, students challenged both others’ and their own views, to reach a better conclusion. Moreover, three undergraduates from University of Cambridge joined the online summer program on the last day, and shared their daily life and experiences in Cambridge. Their friendliness and talkativeness brought lots of laughter and fresh ideas to ZJU-SOM students. In the end, the students presented their well-prepared group projects of which the topics included Shakespeare, AI, Brexit, etc. Group “RiUK” with the topic of “Chinese companies coping strategies in the post-epidemic era” won the top prize.

This program provides students with an open environment to step out of their comfort zone, viewing the world in a macroscopic and pluralistic way, questioning the authority and speaking out their opinions fearlessly. As Dr. Yin concluded, after the program, the students will keep “challenging the questions, say no to dualism”, “challenging the premises, say no to stereotypes”, and “challenging the authority, say no to superficiality”.

Final presentation by SOM-ZJU students