Five students from Cascadia Community College have been awarded full scholarships to study at Beijing Jiaotong University to take part in a two-week summer intensive. The students will work in teams to develop a web application designed to provide a solution for voice recognition. They depart this week.

“It’s amazing. We get to travel and study something we love doing,” said student Terry Jung, who was awarded the scholarship along with Ryan Abraham, Sean Murray, Mark Robinson, and Todd Taylor.

The Cascadia students, all of whom are pursuing Associate in Applied Science degrees in Web Application Programming Technology, are eager to put their technical skills to the test. They will have to get used to a typical Chinese schedule that delivers class instruction eight hours a day; they will not, however, need to understand Mandarin.

“We’re being instructed in English, which is a good thing,” Todd Taylor said, “or they can just fail me now.”

In addition to mastering platform development skills, the program builds in opportunities for the students to visit information technology companies and tour cultural sites.

Beijing Jiaotong University is covering all of the students’ costs, including transportation, tuition, food and lodging.

You can follow the students’ adventures on Cascadia’s blog at http://cascadiaupdates.wordpress.com/