The three-week trip to Berkeley came to a successful end. Looking back on the exchange and learning life of the past three weeks,despitethe language barrierand culturalshock, the sense ofacquiring knowledge,gradually integrating into local life,and broadening my horizonsto accept new things-haseffectively alleviated the confusion brought bysocial differences, andall of thesetogether constituted a good memory of this trip.

School introduction and life experience

My school for this exchange program is the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley for short), located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. This school is a public research university known asa member of the renowned US universities association named"PublicIvy".It has a high reputation in academia and has been selected for the UK government's "High Potential Talent Visa Scheme".

The campus wasimpeccablyquiet and beautiful. During the three-weekprogram, the schoolspeciallyallocated a student apartment, fully equipped with cozy and advanced domestic amenities such as kitchens, laundries, and student activity rooms. The dormitory was a triple room with a desk and bunk beds. A refrigerator and a microwave were provided. In addition, each enrolled exchange student could use the campus bus for free with theirID card and Clipper card issued by the school, and the ID card has a certain amount of flex dollars for students to spend in the school cafeteria and store each semester.

There are four restaurants: Crossroad, Cafe3, Foodhill,and Clark. The restaurants offered a wide variety of meals to maximize the diversity of students' tastes. There were so many shops around the campus thattheycould trytheirbest to meet the consumer needs of our students.

So in general,UCBwasavery beautifuland satisfyingplace for students tofind inner peace and dedicate themselves to academic research, which of course,bearsgreatresemblancetoLanzhou University.

The“tour”of the study tour

"Tour" and "study" complement each other,whichis the real "study tour".Besides heavy academic tasks,there were also opportunities for entertainment. For example,on the sunny weekend of the first week, I also asked my classmates to take an Uber to the famous Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Grate Arts to take photos.

The most impressive experience for me was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge with my classmates. When I set foot onit, the famous red steel giant I had seen in the film and television slowly turned into a vague shadow. The wind is very strong and very cold, the tide is surging under the bridge, countless vehicles whistling past outside the protective fence on our side, only the steel plate asphalt trembling at the foot is the real...... The four of uspersistedgoing the whole way, and it was precisely because of this decision that I completely reversed the twisting and resisting psychology when I first came here- during the processI firmly believed that as long as Ipersisted insomething, time would always give me the answer I wanted.

In addition, the school also provided student-preferentialbenefits for current students. After logging in the Rec Sports online shop as a Berkeley student, my classmates and I booked a kayak for free and spent an afternoon swimming in the sunshine and sea at the Marina. In this process, not onlyhad Ienhancedmutualfriendshipswith my classmates, butIalso effectivelysolved the problems in life and study through communication with my classmates, whichstrongly built up myconfidenceinthefaceofthefutureacademic path regardless of domestically or oversea.

The“study”of the study tour

Topics of Music in the History and American Humor have benefited me a lot and helped me have a deeper understanding of music and humor culture.

Topics of Music in the History was unique because it was a course that blended elements of music, philosophy, history, aesthetics, and social ethics. The theme of "animalization" was implemented in the three-week teaching. The teacher combined the "animalization" in music with a series of topics in the society and history of the United States and even not limited to the United States to inspire us to connect and think.

In class, sitting in a circle with students from different countries, different majors with different ages and different marriage and love experiences, arguing and speaking activelyaroundthe questions raised by the teacher according to music and related literature in the homework module of the previous day,wasnot only a novel experience but also the most exciting and devoted part of my daily life. This lesson model was similar to the debate, but there were no hard and fast requirements for the time of speech and the school of theory. Virginia advocated encouraging teaching to encourage every student to express their own opinions and ideas bravely and freely, regardless of whether there are grammatical mistakes, but paying more attention to the depth of thinking and criticism. While someone was talking about his ideas, allthestudents listened to him attentively,showing great passionforparticipation in the class.

Besides, the teacher attached great importance to diversified teaching methods. What impressed me most was the visit to the museum visit in the third week. At that time, the museum carried out the "visual experience of music" activity related to our course theme, and Virginia made a quick decision to take everyone to the museum to visit in that class. Watching the acoustic lines of animals in different colors on the screen in a dark environment and listening to the recordings of different animals in the forest gave me a new feeling of the animal element in music, which not only inspired the theme of my final presentation, but also contributed to the aesthetic topic I studied, and once again stimulated my academic research enthusiasm.

The final task for the class was apresentationthatstudentsexplainedtheirthoughtsona selected topic aboutmusic and animals in combination with the course content. Taking the Butterfly Lovers (a traditional Chinese folk music) as an example, I compared it with the western story Romeo and Juliet and inspired people to think about Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai's butterfly transformation (that is, special animalization treatment) from the perspective of Chinese traditional culture and experience the Chinese romance behind it. In my opinion, I have been able to reflect on Chinese culture while accepting the input of Western culture in the course, andhavefurther used the knowledge and skills Imastered to integrate and export the two,as well asrealizingthe export of Chinese culture.

The American Humor course mainly adopted the small-class teaching method, which mainly revealed the diversity of American humor and analyzeditstypes, meanings,and influences of humor from a social perspective. This course not onlyexpandedmy knowledgefoundation,but also cultivated my sensitivity to cultural diversity and gained a deeper insight into the history of the formation ofsuch an impressivelyopen and diverse cultural atmosphere in the United States.

In the final presentation, I discussed the topic of stereotypes according tomyChinese cultural background,withrecognition fromthe teacher.Having studied this course,Ipay more attention to the stereotyping in life and the discriminationamongdifferent cultures.

Overall, the three-week study tour at UC Berkeley provided me with an extremelyinvaluable opportunity not only to expand my academic horizons but also toreapa wealth of life insights in recreational and cultural experiences. I will cherish this unforgettable experience and integrate what I have learned into my future study and life.And finally, I wanttodeliver my sincere gratitude toCuiying Honors Collegeforthe support and convenience provided.