The E.J. Ourso College of Business announced a partnership with Hong Kong Polytechnic University that will allow University students to participate in a Chinese exchange program beginning spring 2014.
The program will send select business students to study a semester at Hong Kong Polytechnic. The college currently sends students on short-term trips to China, India and Brazil, but Dean Richard D. White Jr. said this is the college’s first program that will allow students to spend an entire semester overseas.
“It will be a life-changing opportunity for the students that go over there,” White said. “It will make them so much more marketable in the business world. They won’t have to say they took international classes here or specialized in globalization; they can say they spent an entire semester in Asia.”
White said students who go will take five classes at Hong Kong Polytechnic: four business classes taught in English and one class taught in Mandarin Chinese.
White said each student must have at least a 3.0 GPA to participate.
“The selection process will be very competitive,” White said. “We will look at GPAs, and we’ll interview all the students. The students go over there representing LSU, and we want them to be the best ambassadors possible.”
White said he created the program to help develop the college’s globalization growth initiative. Emerging Markets Initiative Director Ye-Sho Chen and Assistant Dean for Academic Programs Ashley Junek went to Hong Kong in May to finalize details and visit the campus.
“We visited their dormitories and had conversations with some of their students,” Chen said. “Every semester, they have 400 exchange students on campus.”
Chen said Hong Kong Polytechnic’s large number of exchange students make it the perfect place to start the program.
Participating students will pay regular LSU tuition and fees but will not pay any tuition to Hong Kong Polytechnic. They must pay for room and board, but White estimates costs will not exceed those at LSU.
TOPS and other financial aid may be used to offset the costs. White said the business college plans to offer up to $4,000 in scholarships to each participant.
