T-School IQP

For my Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP) in Taipei, Taiwan, I explored the first run of the T-School program at Soochow University (東吳大學). Taiwan’s higher education system, traditionally centered around exams and rote learning, is facing a decline in student enrollment due to the country’s aging population. This traditional approach often leaves students ill-prepared for real-world challenges, emphasizing memorization over practical skills. The T-School program, established by the School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, aims to shift this paradigm by fostering creativity, collaboration, and technical skills in a low-stress environment. The program offers a unique blend of humanities and technology through workshops and courses, such as Pecha-Kucha presentation nights and podcast creation, culminating in a certificate of completion upon finishing all workshops.

Our team focused on evaluating T-School's impact and identifying areas for improvement. Through interviews, surveys, and field observations, we uncovered several key challenges, including high dropout rates and issues with team dynamics. On the positive side, we found that students greatly valued the program’s emphasis on creativity and interdisciplinary collaboration. For many local students, T-School was a rare opportunity to work alongside peers from different academic backgrounds and school years.

One of our significant findings was that many students joined T-School for reasons unrelated to its core mission, such as prize incentives or specific skill acquisition. This disconnect, coupled with the demanding workload and team conflicts, led to nearly 50% of the students dropping out. To address these issues, we proposed 11 recommendations to enhance the program, including better training on the provided equipment, clearer guidance at the program’s start, and improved team formation strategies.

By addressing these challenges, T-School can better achieve its goal of equipping students with valuable skills for their future careers. For me, this project provided an opportunity to engage closely with local students, explore an educational approach that breaks away from traditional methods, and deploy my passion for experiential learning and teaching.

I'm grateful to have worked on this project with my teammates Eleanor, Sakshi, and Spencer. I would like to thank our sponsors the dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Soochow University Dr. Mi Chienkuo (米建國), and sociology professor Dr. Liu Yu-Cheng (劉育成) for giving us this opportunity. I would also like to express my gratitude to our advisors, Prof. Du and Prof. Kinicki, for their valuable guidance throughout the project.

Click here to see the project paper

An Entirely New Culture

During my time in Taiwan, I immersed myself in its rich culture and explored many incredible places. Every weekend, I visited landmarks, like the National Palace Museum, Taipei 101, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Shilin Night Market, Kinmen Islands, and TSMC, among others.

I went hiking in the mountains, tried all kinds of street food (Lin’s Chinese Pizza at the Shilin MRT station is top-notch), and chatted with locals whenever I could. Everyone was super friendly and excited to share their culture with me. I even picked up some basic Mandarin, which came in handy since not many people spoke English.

One unforgettable experience was feeling the tremors of the massive earthquake in Hualien while I was in Taipei. It was the first time I had ever felt an earthquake, and it turned out to be the most powerful and destructive one in Taiwan in the last 25 years. It was a frightening early morning experience, with news reports and images of collapsed buildings in the eastern region still vivid in my memory.

Exploring Taiwan in Pictures