by Maria Driscoll

Two Holland College students are leaving on the trip of a lifetime. Business Information Technology student Louis MacDonald and Hotel and Restaurant Management student Stephen Turner were chosen to represent the College on an eight-week cultural exchange program to China.

"Each year, there will be a student exchange program," said Jolene Chan, the Holland College International Project Development Officer. "Over the last two years, we have had Chinese students come over to Holland College."

This year, for the first time, Holland College will send students to visit colleges in three different Chinese cities. The Canadian College Partnership Program (CCPP) will fund the trip. MacDonald and Turner both applied through the College for the trip and were selected after an interview process. Among other things, they were asked what they could contribute by representing P.E.I. and how they would handle a very different living environment. Both MacDonald and Turner said they would adapt.

"We're going to be giving presentations to students in China who will be touring the schools," Turner said. He plans to tell the Chinese students how they can apply to his Hotel and Restaurant program. He also hopes to meet hotel managers and tour hotels in the country. "I want to get a little know-how into their growing tourism and hospitality industry." Turner said.

MacDonald, who has a cultural anthropology degree, originally planned to study in China or India while studying for his PhD. MacDonald will concentrate mainly on the technical aspects of his Business Information Technology program during his presentation. All first-year BIT students must develop an informational webpage about their program, and MacDonald plans to use the page as a visual template. He will also meet with local computer programmers and study how the Chinese colleges are adapting the Holland College BIT program. "They concentrate a lot more on theory than maybe we do here, which, for the College, is quite, quite different," MacDonald said. "I'm really interested in seeing how they have taken our curriculum and approached it from a more theoretical perspective."

Both MacDonald and Turner said they love to travel, but this will be their first trip outside of North America. "Before going to China, I will have gone on a Caribbean cruise with my class," Turner said. "I get back from the Caribbean cruise on Sunday night and the following Sunday morning, I fly to China."

They both said the biggest challenge awaiting them in China will be adjusting to a new culture, time change, climate, and language. MacDonald and Turner both know only a few Mandarin words, but want to learn more of the language. The three cities they will visit are located in three different Chinese provinces located an hour from each other by plane.

After they return to Canada, MacDonald and Turner will both give presentations to their respective programs. MacDonald said, "Because I'll be concentrating quite a bit on how they've gone about implementing the BIT curriculum, I plan to write a fairly extensive analysis on that and incorporate it as the main piece of my presentation." Turner said he wanted to give an informal presentation about what he'll encounter and learn on his trip.

Even though MacDonald and Turner's career choices seem very different, they share at least one important thing in common. MacDonald said, "We're both now defined by the globe. The IT industry is absolutely dependant on forging new marketplaces and maintaining full global contact," he said. "I think it's important for a person who wants to excel in this industry to be comfortable in knowing other cultures and learning to adapt to them."

"Ultimately, we're representing the College, the province, and the country," MacDonald said.

MacDonald and Turner may be the first Holland College students to participate in this experience, but Chan said she hopes they won't be the last."They are truly great ambassadors," Chan said.