APRU Experience at Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Student: Matthew Tillyer

Major: Political Science - International Affairs - BA/MIA

During the summer of 2024, I had the honor of representing UCSD in the APRU Undergraduate Leaders Program hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) at their beautiful Minhang campus. The theme for the program was “Sustainable Development in a Fast-Changing Metropolis” which encouraged us to engage with the many dimensions of Shanghai’s recent rapid development and its implications for our own cities.

The Undergraduate Leader Program provided a variety of opportunities to become familiar with the vast collection of neighborhoods and communities that compose Shanghai. The variety of interesting excursions throughout the metropolis exposed us to a snapshot of the diverse set of operations and people required to sustain and grow the city. We visited a farm and food distribution center to learn about food security, did a workshop with a community design organization, and visited sites of cultural preservation from various historic periods. The sights from one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers were unfortunately cloudy the morning we visited but that did not take away from the awe inspiring scale of the downtown superstructures. As someone that uses a wheelchair, Shanghai’s urbanscape presented a variety of challenges but also created spaces for me to have meaningful conversations with the other students about what accessibility looks like in their countries and what can be done to improve it. 

My nearly two weeks in Shanghai was a once in a lifetime cultural experience as I was able to live, learn, and explore with students from SJTU as well as schools from around the Pacific Rim. As the only student from the United States on the trip, I had the unique opportunity to engage with many of the student questions about the U.S and how the U.S is viewed around the Pacific Rim. One delicious cultural activity was a lunch where the students cooked dishes from their country and shared them with the group. I am happy to say that grilled cheese sandwiches were a success. My favorite night was when students from each country shared songs and sometimes dance from their culture. From Thai pop ballads and the Singapore national anthem, to the New Zealander’s Haka and an Ecuadorian cumbia, the energy in the room was non-stop and an enthusiastic reminder of the barrier breaking power of intercultural exchange.

My experiences in Shanghai have granted me new insight into the many challenges but also opportunities for improvement in our urban environments. For our final presentation, my team was tasked to imagine what green spaces could look like in Shanghai in the year 2075. We drew on examples from our home cities in the United States, Korea, China, and New Zealand as inspiration for transforming older infrastructure into accessible, equitable, and ecologically responsible green spaces. It was a pleasure learning from every group’s presentation as each brought unique insights from their diverse personal experiences.

I cannot thank the ISP advising team enough for guiding me through the process and recognizing the immense value of this program. I am thankful for the program team at SJTU for their hard work hosting our group, ensuring that we got the most out of our time and felt at home in a new environment. I highly encourage anyone considering the program to apply!