Breakfast will be available from 7:30 to 8:25 at the school canteen and Morning Meeting will begin at 8:30. This half-hour meeting of everyone in the program is an important start for the day. Announcements will be made, but more importantly, students will have a chance to report on the previous day’s experiences or discuss current topics.

Two class periods of an hour each are scheduled before lunch. Students will have several classes to give them a background to contemporary China and Shanghai, but generally morning classes will be devoted to Mandarin.

Lunch will be served in the school canteen from 11:30 to 12:25, after which students will depart for their community service work.

Students will eat dinner around 6:00, usually at different restaurants around the city. On most evenings there will be special programs with speakers, panels, or a Chinese movie. Students will sign in at their residence hotels by 10:30.

But, “typical” is hard to describe because of the great variety in the day-to-day schedules and the adjustments necessary so that students can coordinate their classes with the needs of their community service work.

• Three mornings a week small groups will meet before breakfast to learn and practice Taiji, the traditional Chinese morning exercise/martial art, with a Chinese master.  
• Six days of the program will be devoted to homestays, three days with a family in Shanghai and three days with a family in Suzhou.  
• Students will plan their own activities for their free days and free afternoons and evenings.  
• One night a week we will show and discuss a Chinese film.  
• One night a week teachers, TAs, and students will share something that they choose from their journals.  
• A social center in the school with TV, DVD player, and sound system will be open all day from breakfast until 10:15 at night each day that activities are scheduled.