MIT-YZU Camp (My Camp for short) is an event co-hosted by MIT and Yuan Ze University. It lets people who want to experience English and foreign education do so without spending a lot of money on studying abroad. Last week I went to this event, and it kept me from writing for the whole week. It was worth it, though. Even though the five days of commuting by train were exhausting, I really did learn some things.

The second session of My Camp this year ran from July 11 to July 15. The whole event is free, and it runs from 9 a.m. to about 4 p.m. for five days. It’s really fun, but there’s one thing to keep in mind: the event doesn’t provide accommodation, and the classes are held in Neili. So I had to get up every morning, take the train to Neili for class, and take the train home afterward. I live in Taipei, so there are commuter trains I can take, which is fine. You could also think of the train ride as a kind of training. After all, when you go to university or start working, many people will probably have to commute by train too. With Taipei’s ridiculous housing prices, few people can afford to live there. So people end up living in the suburbs and commuting every day. The first few days I wasn’t used to getting up early, but after a while I adjusted~

▼▲The building where we had class

▼▼Group photo from the first day~

My Camp is basically MIT graduates coming to Yuan Ze University to teach. The course content is mostly about American culture and worldviews. This session’s theme was energy, so we covered a lot of energy-related knowledge. They also introduced some popular American movies. Another thing: the whole of My Camp is taught in English, so it’s a good chance to practice speaking English and build your confidence.

▲▼The teacher is so handsome!

To be honest, at first I was afraid I’d embarrass myself or get laughed at. Most of the participants were high school students, and my English is pretty bad, so it was hard to communicate with people. But once I got in, I found that everyone was pretty nice. There was none of the looking-down-on-vocational-school students I had imagined. Even though my English is weak, I could more or less understand what the teacher was saying. With my good friend Cang Hai helping me, I managed to get through it~ xD I’m really grateful to have him these five days. Otherwise I don’t know how I would have made it 0.0 Luckily it wasn’t a trip to the US for real, or I might not have made it back to Taiwan…

Over these five days, I often only half understood what the teachers said, and I felt I hadn’t learned much. But in fact, these five days taught me how to learn English and showed me how Taiwan’s education is different from others’! I think the most important thing in learning English is speaking up and having courage. If you dare to speak, you’ll improve. Even if you make mistakes, don’t be afraid, because who doesn’t make mistakes? Everyone had a time when they were just starting out. It’s just a matter of starting earlier or later. Also, Americans really don’t care much about grammar XDD I found this out on July 15 when I went to see Harry Potter. The English dialogue in it… totally shocked me, because I could understand it all! It was very colloquial and didn’t follow grammar at all. When I thought back, the teachers at My Camp spoke the same way… So speak English more! Don’t worry about grammar mistakes, because that’s how people talk!

And then there’s education… I used to hear that in America, classes start late and end early. I could never believe it, because I always thought you had to study for a long time to get anything out of it. Later my view changed a little: studying only works if you’re interested. But My Camp gave me a new feeling. So education can be this interactive! The teachers often called on us to go to the whiteboard next to the classroom to do calculations ourselves and think it through, instead of just reading from the textbook. With classes like that, there’s none of the pressure you find in Taiwan. Some people think you need pressure to study seriously? Maybe… But with the right teaching methods, you don’t need pressure to push you into studying. If you’re interested in what you’re learning, and you have a great teacher guiding you, learning won’t feel stressful! It comes from within! (By great teachers, I mean good teaching methods~)

 

▲▲The teachers playing cards with the students. This scene… you’d hardly see it in Taiwan, right? xD

The activities I remember most from these five days were PE class and the outdoor class where we built tents. It was my first time in a gym! Yuan Ze University’s facilities are really great. The gymnasium feels like a club, the swimming pool is very high-end, and the gym is a bit small but the equipment is excellent~ In the tent class, the teacher suddenly split us into several groups and told us to build a “paper tent” out of newspaper that could house at least three people. There was a time limit, and we had to finish within it! In the end, almost everyone finished, but…. The wind had picked up a bit, and all the tents got blown over 0.0

▼▼Everyone discussing how to set up the tent~

▼▼Badminton in PE class, warming up

▼▼At the closing ceremony, someone ran up to dance and show off XD

If I can, next year I want to get my English good enough to go to My Camp one more time!