Photo by Lauren Murray
This spring, 20 WCU students and two chaperones, Professor Linda Zhu and Professor Li Lu, planned to take a trip abroad to China. This trip, scheduled for March 5 to March 15, was to enhance their skills in Supply Chain Management, but was cancelled due to the coronavirus epidemic.
The students and faculty had multiple meetings which dated all the way back to September to set up passports, visas and flight tickets. The group arranged to leave from the Newark airport using United Airlines. The students were to land on Friday, March 6 and planned to do miscellaneous touring the entire weekend before their abroad course began. There were plans to visit The Great Wall, Forbidden Cities, restaurants, shops, etc.
On top of studying Supply Chain Management, the students also would study “Chinese-English Culture,” which included cooking classes, Chinese calligraphy, mask painting, dumpling making and ancient Chinese medicine practice.
Originally, the students were to be exchange students at Beijing Union University, where they would live in the dorms on their campus. The plan then changed; our WCU students would have to live in a nearby hotel, due to the dorms no longer being able to accommodate them.
A senior student, Lauren Murray, who attended this abroad trip claims, “I was most excited for the tourist attractions and bonding with the group of students, especially to dive into this culture and learn from an unforgettable opportunity.”
Another senior student, Gabrielle Johnson, also expressed how truly excited she was as well. According to Johnson, “I was most looking forward to immersing myself into the culture. Exploring the way of life in Beijing would have opened my eyes to a culture I have never been able to explore in such depth.”
As excitement began to explode for these students, there was one last meeting in regards to the trip just 46 days before they were leaving— when the trip abroad was suddenly cancelled due to the spread of the coronavirus. As numbers began to skyrocket, faculty felt it was unsafe to send our students to China due to the risk of the virus outbreak.
While, of course it was a let down to the students, they are all extremely grateful to be safe. Johnson shared with me how she felt after she found out the trip was cancelled and said, “At first I was saddened by the trip being cancelled. But now, as I keep up with the latest news on the virus, I am relieved that the virus was detected early enough and that we could protect ourselves from it. It’s scary to think that if the timing was just a little different, we could have been in China when the virus broke out. I’m happy to be safe and I hope the virus is controlled as soon as possible.”
As of now, there have been more than 800 reported deaths and counting and over 37,000 confirmed infections in Mainland China. Due to these numbers, the faculty that were a part of the trip felt that cancelling was the best call for the students. While students are upset about their experience being pushed back, they still aspire to travel to China one day.
Murray informed me that with the devastation of the trip’s cancellation, the class is still being offered online over spring break for the students, so she will continue to complete the course for her resume. As upsetting as the cancellation, we are relieved to say that our students are safe.
Yasmin Schepis is an English major with minors in journalism and Spanish. YS918326@wcupa.edu