IAESTE has arranged for about 2,000 foreign students to go to China. Photos provided to China Daily

A student exchange program connects talent and employers around the world

One of Damian Krzysztof Badziak's biggest passions is Eastern culture, especially China's, yet he says he was hesitant before traveling to the country.

"I was a little scared. I had heard weird stories about work and life in China, and felt it might not be the kind of place someone from the West like me would feel comfortable with," says Krzysztof Badziak, who studies at the Technical University of Lodz, central Poland.

However, he now sees China in a new light after working as an intern in Maymuse, Changzhou, eastern Jiangsu province, for six months.

"I have to say that my good expectations have been met, and none of the negative stories I heard turned out to be true. I want to stay in China a lot longer, at least three more months, possibly a year, or perhaps even for the rest of my life."

Richard Wu, chairman of the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience in China, says those comments are typical of the feedback he has received in recent months. Badziak is one example of a foreign student who comes to China to have an internship through IAESTE.

The association calls itself an independent, non-profit and non-political student exchange organization established in 1948 at Imperial College London. It provides those studying for technical degrees, mainly science, engineering and the applied arts, with paid, course-related, training abroad and employers with highly skilled, highly motivated trainees for long- or short- term projects.

The association says it has arranged exchange visits for more than 350,000 students worldwide, with 80 countries exchanging more than 4,000 trainees a year.

Wu, a graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who later worked as a chemist in a research institute in Washington, says the program set up shop in China in 2000. Since then it has brought around 2,000 foreign students to the country and now brings in about 100 students every year. At the same time IAESTE sends the same number of Chinese students abroad for internships.

Wu says he became acquainted with the association in 1999, through a neighbor who ran the organization's operations in the United States. He realized how invaluable its work was and decided to introduce it in China.

"I have studied in the US for years, but it was only after working there that I was able to learn about its society too. The association's value lies in its ability to give people a solid professional grounding and to inform them about aspects of professional work, society, culture and family, which can help people prepare for their careers, and in some cases even change the direction of their careers."