School started back for Vinisha Tejwani, a Grade 12 student at Hangzhou International School (HIS) on 14 August 2024. However, that’s not to say she wasn’t busy during the summer break. Increasingly, HIS students are using the two months off school to get involved in community projects, accumulate real world experiences, and learn beyond the classroom. For Vinisha, that meant organizing a Cultural Exchange Program this summer.
Inspired by her mother, a teacher, she decided to spend a week connecting with a local community in the small village of Qianmei, located some 40 minutes outside of Hangzhou. For an hour and a half every day, she interacted with 30-40 students and adults and helped them understand the differences and similarities between the Chinese and foreign worlds.
Held in the village’s community hall, the sessions were open to everyone, and Vinisha was accompanied by a Chinese friend and English teacher acquaintance. For Vinisha, this was a chance to explore a potential future career as a teacher, just like her mother, and connect with Chinese culture, having been at HIS since Grade 1. “At the start the villagers gave me a Chinese name, then I gave them English names at the end,” says Vinisha, “which summed up the cultural acceptance we had built up over a short space of time.”
Students are increasingly recognizing that getting ahead in the modern world means more than just good grades. Indeed, when reviewing applications, top universities and colleges worldwide are looking for well-rounded students that have real world experience. For HIS Head of Guidance and University Counseling, Canadian Mark Donagher, who has more than 20 years of experience in China, the top US, Australian, Canadian and UK schools want, “Students who will come and make their university a better place. They don’t just want to know what they did in High School; they want to know what they’ve done to impact the world around them – where have they displayed their passion and made a difference.”
