Update (October 2009)

Our Summer Fellowship was a great success!
We are in the process of organizing the photos, videos, presentations, and delegate journals, so please check back in a few weeks!

The IMUSE 2009 Beijing Summer Fellowship Program will bring thirty outstanding students from Chinese and American colleges and graduate schools together from August 9 to August 21, 2009 to share their opinions, experience Chinese culture, and learn from one another. During the fellowship, Chinese and American delegates will participate alongside one another in a variety of activities designed to be both academically and personally enriching. Delegates will participate in panel discussion events with a student audience, where they will discuss the pertinent issues facing Chinese-American relations today. They will interact with and learn from distinguished guest speakers, which in past IMUSE events have included distinguished academics and celebrities from both America and China. As IMUSE is strongly committed to improving the quality of life for individuals in both countries, the fellowship will include a short period of public service within an underprivileged community. Other activities and workshops will cover a variety of topics from politics to pop culture to food. All events will be carried out in English, and no knowledge of Chinese is necessary.

In an effort to help students become familiar with Beijing and all that it has to offer, IMUSE will facilitate tours to sites of cultural interest as well as major businesses and government offices within the city. In addition, two days of the fellowship will be spent visiting a village outside Beijing, granting delegates a rare opportunity to glimpse the rural China so often overlooked by Western visitors. In order to help document their experiences, delegates will each keep a blog during the two weeks that will be uploaded onto the IMUSE website.

Students will stay the two weeks in a hotel and have all necessary living expenses paid for, including accommodations, food, ground transportation, and $500 toward transportation to and from Beijing.

IMUSE hopes that this dynamic, multidisciplinary, and challenging two weeks will expose both American and Chinese delegates to a better understanding of each other, and foster friendships and relationships that last long after the two weeks have ended.

All students in an American postsecondary school (including two- and four-year colleges, graduate schools, and vocational, technical, and trade schools) are eligible to apply; overseas American citizens in non-American postsecondary institutions are also eligible. Students need not be American citizens to apply.

Select applicants will be contacted for English-language Skype interviews shortly after the application deadline, and fellows will be announced in late April.