Presidential Leadership Class visits China for second year

In this episode, join Kaleena Burtrum, TNE writer, as she speaks with Seth Brown, PLC President, and Benton Blasi, PLC Member. Listen as they discuss their recent spring break trip through PLC to China. 

For more information, email Chris Adney adneyc@nsuok.edu

For more NSU news, visit nsunews.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, welcome to Hawk Talk, the Northeastern's official podcast. I'm Colina Bertram, a TNE writer. Today I'm joined by Seth Brown, PLC president, and Venton Blasey, PLC member. Today we will be discussing the Presidential Leaders class and the recent trip to China. First of all, tell us a little about who you guys are and how you ended up in PLC.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Um, okay, so I'm Seth Brown, and with PLC, I just kind of had people tell me that I should apply for the scholarship here at NSU. Um is a great opportunity, and it was a great way to get involved on campus, so I just kind of looked into it more, went through the interview process, and that's kind of just how I ended up in PLC. Just went through the process.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Yeah, uh, I'm Benton Blasey, and I was uh very involved in high school, and um there were some teachers at the my high school, which was no water, that had some uh siblings and um kids that were in the PLC program, and they kind of encouraged that, and then I looked into it and like Seth, went through the interview process and was lucky enough to receive the scholarship.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

And for those of us that don't know much about PLC, can one of you tell us a little bit about what the organization is?

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, so the president's leadership class is a scholarship that basically takes usually anywhere from 20 to 25 students that are usually like high school leaders or show leadership qualities. And in how I kind of view it is it's basically NSU putting an investment on students. It's a scholarship, it pays a good amount towards your uh college tuition and different things like that. And uh they're just basically saying we want to pay you to come here to be leaders on campus and make our campus better.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Me too. And for this trip, who in PLC was eligible to go to this trip?

SPEAKER_03 1:51

Any seniors by credits or by or I guess technically it's juniors. Um very recently, it used to be a senior trip, but I they transitioned it to a junior trip, uh, where if you're a junior by credits or just by a year, you can go.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And one of our writers, Bethany, she recently wrote a piece um before the trip happened. Her article mentioned that NSU's goal through this trip was to strengthen our partnership with China. What did you guys do to achieve this goals, these goals? Were there a lot of like seminars and meetings?

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Yeah, we went to I would say the first three days of our trip was pretty like touristy stuff, and then the last four or five days of it was pretty like business oriented, whether it was like touring colleges, having meetings with the different colleges that they had there, uh, or like going to the middle schools and the high schools and stuff that we went and trip took a visit to.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

Yeah, a lot of what we did like those first days went to the Great Wall, um, went to the Bidden City, the Summer Palace, definitely the more touristy, um the cool attractions to go to and look at. And then we went to it was called the Hebei Normal University in China, and the first day they had like a leadership symposium, and they had a bunch of speakers. Me and Biton both spoke at it. Um several NSU faculty also spoke there, and then they had Chinese speakers uh on behalf of their school that spoke, and this year it was all centered around like AI and youth leadership, so they kind of talked about that in the future of that, and just expressed their uh hopes and desires to continue the partnership with NSU and Hebei Normal University.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

That's interesting. So, you guys, did you get to meet a lot of students in at our different schools? I know we have a campus that we're really closely associated with in China, so did you guys get to meet a lot with those students and network over there?

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Uh yeah, a lot of so there's a lot of English like majors studying English in China, and so a lot of students from that like program got to basically just spend those couple of days with us and just kind of walk around with us, acted as translators, guides.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Um Nothing came out of our pockets. Uh I think they said it was like five thousand dollars per student to go, like if you'd count like the travel, the stay, the all the excursions what we were doing and stuff like that. But I believe that the Chinese government like subsidizes a lot of I think they just pay for a lot of the stuff that we were doing. So because I think they're trying to bring in tourists. So I don't know how much like exactly came out of NSU's pocket.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Uh we're not told exactly like what the financial or budget side of things are. It's just it's somewhere in between that partnership with NSU and the Chinese university and government. Um, but yeah, it's definitely just their way of trying to get more people to come to China and see what it's like and just overall increase the uh for not participation, the agreement between and just strengthen that bond between NSU and the uh Chinese school.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Was this both your guys' first trip overseas?

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yes, it was my first time out of the country. Yeah, this is mine as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Would you guys say international travel is for you, or was this a one-high yield?

SPEAKER_03 5:22

Maybe no flight longer than twelve hours. Fourteen and a half on the way there was pretty rough, but the twelve hours back wasn't bad.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Oh, okay. So two and a half hours is where it's like.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

Yeah, that that last two and a half hours was pretty brutal.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yeah, the the flights were rough, um, lots of walking around, lots of movies watched thanks uh to the air airlines for the show. Shout out United. Yeah. Um got a lot of movies. Um lots of people just were not watching movies, which blew my mind. They were just watching the flight track flight tracker for about 14 hours. That was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Did the Chinese government pick the guys to get first class or is that where they drew the line?

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Nope, we're in economy. We could upgrade our seats, our I we could upgrade our seats, I think, but we're still college students. Yeah, it was it was a lot of money that we didn't want to spend.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Did either of you bring back any mementos from China or um I brought back uh a good handful of just like snacks because they had a lot of different my favorite snack all I had while I was over there was actually Cheetos, but it was like steak flavored Cheetos.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, they always have multiple different flavors that are crazy that you can only get at certain shops.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Yes, like everything was like different flavors, not the usual. Um and then I brought some just uh like challenge coin things I got from the Great Wall. Um that's just a long-running like gift and tradition in my family. We just uh like to collect challenge coins, so I bought them for several family members and just other little memorabilia and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Uh I like Seth, I bought a bunch of snacks. We both bought suits from the market, uh tailored suits that were pretty cheap compared to American tailored suits. Uh, and then just like some little knick-knacks and stuff for my little sister, but nothing too crazy.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Is there anything about the trip that you guys would like to share that I may not cover?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I mean it was a great opportunity. We really enjoyed getting to go and just kind of explore and learn all the history and just see the different cultures because I mean for both of us it was our first time out of the country, so seeing how a different uh part of the world just operates and goes about their daily life. Um it was just an interesting experience, something to take and learn from. And I don't know, I'd say anyone who has the opportunity to do it, definitely do it. And and just in general, if you have the opportunity to go out of the country into another place, I would definitely try to jump on that and do it.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Yeah, I like that. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Okay, well, I appreciate both of you guys for taking the time to meet with me. And thank you all for listening to Hot Talk Podcast. You can visit us at nsnews.com or Spotify or follow our social media pages at Tanny on Instagram and the Northeastern on Facebook. So we discussed that speech you had to give. Could you give us a brief summary of your speech?

SPEAKER_02 8:41

Um, yeah, so the speech was just we got a a basic topic, just youth leadership and AI. And what I kind of centered my speech around was more so um first just kind of talking about AI and how it's impacting our lives today. Um and then I kind of went into how it's here, um, it's not gonna go away for the foreseeable future. So our best bet is to not just shun it right out, but to find the good uses of it, and then use those to help us, not necessarily give us a crutch. Like I know in college they talk about students using AI and Chat GPT and things like that to help them do homework. But there's so many other uses for AI that can really help you and just make things a lot better and a lot faster uh with the right kind of prompts or uh technology. So if we find the ways to do it like that and don't use it as a crutch and use it more as a support item, then uh it will help us in the future. And I just also touched on that AI is only like a code and just a generative machine. And so it can't really do anything without the person behind it. So for all these things that we're creating or working on, they we still need the human and the person giving it the prompt or telling it what to do at the end of the day for most of the AI that we have now. So just remembering that the human is the actual person putting in the work and the AI is just the tool is kind of what I touched on.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

How do you prepare this to research AI?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

So to prepare, I didn't get my speech topping until about two weeks before we left, so it was kind of crunch time. Um but I just did some basic research, just looked up facts, um, just basic stuff about like how AI is gonna be used in the future and uh where we're at today. And there's one I can't remember the exact, but it was saying something like in the trillions is what the AI market is gonna be uh in the like next 10 years or so. And so I just kind of basically said if we don't like I said, if we don't hop on that train, we're essentially gonna be left behind. And that's a lot of opportunity and money in general just to leave there and not be a part of. Um so just stuff like that, and then just spent so I mean a lot of what I did was more so speaking to AI and how it's how we use it in leadership and kind of what we should do with it, not necessarily the cold hard facts, but how as leaders we should go about using AI.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

And did you have an opinion about your speech before you started looking into it? Like your opinion on the usefulness of AI and stuff, is it right, is it wrong? And like looking into it and doing your research, did it change or enforce your opinions at all?

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Um, I wouldn't say it changed any of my opinions. I kind of went into into it with the mindset that uh AI is a tool and that's what we should be using it for. Uh more so like I think about it as students that are using AI today in like universities. Um it's gonna be really scary whenever we get up in a few years, and you know, if there are those doctors or other professions that just use AI to get through their their school, and like is that who you want to be the one working just basically catered to us and helped us around the campus in whatever fashion we needed. Um there was probably, I mean, four or five groups of students, and each of them had like two to three translators or guides with them at all times, and then uh we had people taking pictures and videos, and our main guide person would be, we called him Q. Uh his name was Kwan, I don't know his last name. I don't know if I couldn't pronounce it to be honest. Um and he was he's a grad student here at the NSU Talicall campus, but from China, so he was kind of the lead person for getting us around and making sure things got done.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Um, did you guys have tasks or assignments within PLC that you had a company? Like certain things you're required to do while over there, or was it just a purely network?

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Not really. I'd say the only task, like person with the task before we went over there was Seth. They before we left, they said we needed one person to give a speech uh about the AI and future leadership or whatever. And then when we got over there, they asked me if I would give like a shorter speech just about my first experiences in China. But other than that, it was really just have fun and go see all the things and take it all in.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Okay. I was wondering about that. If you guys just had certain stuff if you went around and you had to do maybe a review, or did how did your guys' classes react with you guys being gone? I know Cassie had you taking photos for photography to class to get participant participation points. Did any of your guys' other classes have you do anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Not really. I'm a finance major and all my classes are all online, so uh it was I just worked ahead and got all my stuff caught up before we left.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

So yeah, all my classes very similar. They just said we'll work with you when you get back, or like for digital photography, um, she had me take pictures of China with while I was there, and I'm gonna upload those and use those so they can showcase uh PLC and just NSU students being in China.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

You guys mentioned you did tours of the Great Wall and stuff. Were there other activities they had organized for you guys aside from checking out different schools and monuments and stuff?

SPEAKER_03 14:39

It was a it was a full well they had they had our day scheduled from about eight o'clock in the morning to about eight p.m. that night. Every day we were over there. We went see the great saw the Great Wall. We went to some of the the markets that they have around there that are like uh you barter for your price instead of just like it's set there. So that was pretty fun. What did we do the next day?

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Went to the the we did Forbidden City first, and the Great Wall, and then we went to the market where you can negotiate for prices. Um those days were mainly just full of tourist days and going to other smaller locations, um, just kind of walking around. I think we went to another like street market type of thing. And but the days when we went to like Hebei and we went to a middle school one day, uh they had a bunch of cultural activities set up for us. So we got to listen to some like traditional Chinese instruments, um, watch Chinese dances, uh oh, watch different things like perform with like Chinese war drums. They did like the dragon dance that you usually see on like TV and stuff like that, and then uh what was another Tai Chi? And what do we do at the middle school?

SPEAKER_03 15:55

We did we played ping pong. Uh what else we we made like fans out of cutting paper. Uh we painted inside of a glass bottle. What else did we do at the middle?

SPEAKER_02 16:11

They did was it was a I don't know, it's Tai Chi or Kung Fu something, one of those.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yeah. But our days were pretty packed. It was a lot of a lot of just going with the flow and just when they tell you to get on the bus and go somewhere, you just load up and just show up at your next destination and have fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Okay, perfect. I was a little worried, all you guys did was sit through seminars and stuff. Which, you know, saying you went to China for spring break would be super cool. And I don't know how many other people on NSU campus can talk to after their spring break. But if it was just to sit-through speeches and stuff, maybe not have I wouldn't have viewed it as birthday. I'm glad you guys got to have some fun.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

So where did you guys stay throughout the trip?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Holiday Inn. We stayed in Beijing at a holiday inn. For real? Yes. Yes. It was a really nice holiday inn. Yeah, it was the super super bougie holiday inn.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

And then I don't even know how to pronounce the other place we stayed at, but it was like a five-star.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

It was in Xirziaong, and it was super fancy. It was really nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

How did that place differ from Holiday Inn or places here in America?

SPEAKER_03 17:29

I've never stayed in a hotel that nice in America.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Yeah, I can't say I have either. Um I don't know. It was just really luxury and like it just everything just looked a lot nicer than going to an average motel or hotel here.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

So, how was this trip paid for? Did you how much of this came out of your guys' pocket?