After a busy day of taking intensive course and visiting company, the students went to the local farmland-Maple View, which is famous for its gorgeous field view and ice-cream. Maple View has been awarded as “Burlington Times Best Ice Cream Finalist” and “2015 and Chapel Hill Magazine 2015 Best Place to Indulge”. Our company treated every student a scoop of ice cream. With the help of teaching assistant, all students chose their own flavor. Students grasped this chance to take break from busy training schedule, standing in the field enjoying the quietness, taking photos. Some students even went back to buy more scoops.

Thankfully, Fifteen American families volunteered to host the students for two days. Before students’ arrival, we collected student basic information, including gender, majors, hobbies, etc., according to which hosts families chose their students. When students meet their host families for the first time, it seemed they had known each other for a long time. On weekends, different families organized different activities for the students, such as BBQ at Jordon Lake, watching sport games, Shopping in downtown. Coincidently, that Saturday was the Chinese Lantern festival, so the Chinese students introduced the Chinese tradition and taught host families how to cook “Yuan Xiao”, a specialty for Chinese lantern festival. On the last day, when it was time to say goodbye, many host families and students wept. Even though they just stayed together for two days, the host families have already treated the students as their own kids. Since then, for all the students, whenever they come to U.S, there is a home for them.

Professor Salman Azhar, professor in both computer science and business, invited his students to join the class. He firstly introduced his working experience as entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, through which students learned the significant of business plan, which is not just a few pages of document, it’s the fundemental process to analyze the business from full perspectives. Later, professor brought out hot topics in the computer science field, such as AI, deep learning, driverless car. Even though not all the students major in computer science, professor’s explanation is understandable for all of them. At last, the professor divided all the students into small groups, where they presented and introduced popular Apps or software in respective countries, and made short analysis in terms of its business model.

Prior to the beginning of this program, students were divided into four groups on the principle of maximizing synergistic effect. With the skills and methods learned in the class, each group progressed its business plan gradually. Due to the pressure for presenting the plan, students put forward many question to professors regarding the techniques issue and marketing of their products. On the last day, four teams presented their business implement plan one by one. Surprisingly, two teams had made advertisement within such limited time. Finally, four teaching assistant gave score to each team based on their language skill, mastery of the subject, organization, etc. The winner went to team three. However, that’s not the only team which gained. Actually all the students made contribution and developed themselves by exceeding their limitation. Good Job, EVERYONE!