<p>As a parent, the cost did give me pause for a bit but that was very short term for me. Because the trip took place in the middle of spring quarter for my son, it was more an issue–can he go? Fortunately, he only needed four more credits to graduate so he took a five credit online class that allowed him to be able to go. As a political science student who is interested in foreign relations but hadn’t traveled out of North America–this was the trip of a lifetime for my son.</p>
<p>As one of the other students mentioned, the cost is actually very economical if you considered trying to plan this kind of trip on your own. The biggest ticket is the airfare which was just under $2000 but you would need to pay that for any trip to China. For the $3500 tuition–that included 10 nights in very nice hotels, two meals a day, bus transportation, two airline flights within China, admission into multiple tourist venues, a tour guide (my son’s group adored their travel manager), the safety of having them meet you at the airport and make sure you got to where you needed to go. My son only took about $100 in yuen with him and didn’t need to spend much more than that once he was there and that included purchasing meals and souvenirs.</p>
<p>And there were experiences that you as a student would never be able to recreate if you were going on your own. While overall I suppose you could consider it more of a vacation than an educational experience, there was an educational component to it. They did have classes both at the hotels and at two universities and a think tank. My son thought that all of that was very worthwhile. They also got to go to an American embassy building (which was a little disappointing–they only got to meet the social media person) and the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The presentation there was only what the Chinese want you to hear and no discussion of anything that they don’t want to discuss–but that isn’t surprising of course. There were some students on the trip that truly only wanted to take this trip as a chance to party which was frustrating to the students who were really there to learn something. They had homework and presentations that they had to work on as a group and those students definitely didn’t want to do the work. </p>
<p>My son was able to meet and network with students from all over the US, Japan, Australia, South Africa, Canada, South America and Spain. There were a little over 100 students on the diplomacy trip–but they mostly got to know the students who were on their bus as they had to stay together–about 28 students per bus. Even though all the trips were separate–they also crossed paths with some of the business, engineering and medical students on occasion.</p>
<p>So as others have said–this isn’t going to help you get into a college. It might help you plan an independent study project–maybe. You should look at it more as planning a vacation that includes some things that you would never be able to plan for yourself, the chance not only to experience Chinese culture but to meet other students from all over the world. Go from there. My son thought it was fabulous and wants to go back someday. We give ISLP a big thumbs up.</p>