A camera crew from China Central Television recently taped interviews with more than two dozen MIT researchers, students and administrators and came away even more impressed with the Institute than when they arrived.
The crew filmed at MIT for the "World Famous Universities" series on China Central Television (CCTV), which will also include segments on Oxford, Cambridge and Tokyo universities as well as six schools in the United States. Volunteers from the MIT Chinese Students and Scholars Association acted as campus guides and translators.
Before the CCTV crew members arrived for their five-day visit in March, "they thought students at MIT had very little spare time," said graduate students Jacky Liang and Tao Wang, the current and former presidents of the MIT Chinese Students and Scholars Association. "But the abundance of student activities really impressed them." The crew also commented on the diversity of the MIT community, they added.
To many people in China and elsewhere, "MIT has always given a strong impression that it is the place of science and engineering. However, CCTV explored the other side of MIT that's not so well known to the public as they visited the humanities departments, music and theater arts, and the libraries," Liang and Wang said.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on May 5, 2004.
