YZU's empower youth, cultivation of young talents starts from the campus

        The word "empower" refers to the cultivation of the personal ability of being able to control one’s life. In recent years, it has been widely discussed in the educational circles, because with the development of the times, young students must have more diverse abilities to cope with future career challenges. The campus is the most important channel for talent cultivation. In the face of the ever-changing trend, Yuan Ze University constantly adjusts its teaching direction and focus, so as to train young people and realize their career dreams.

        

        The new bilingual feature faces the trend of digital cross domain

        

        Taiwan's higher education environment has been impacted by sub-replacement fertility, the reduction of departments and even the close of universities are heard from time to time. Under such a steep challenge, Yuan Ze University sees more opportunities for growth. In response to the global trend of digitalization, Yuan Ze University focuses on "Digit+@YZU”, transforms from the past "bilingual university" to "new bilingual university (special English class of all departments + required programming language)",of which the primary goal is to cultivate cross domain and global mobile capabilities.

        In response to the trend of digital age, coming artificial intelligence, Yuan Ze University develops of digital cross - domain programs and promotes compulsory programming language courses throughout the University to lay the foundation of  digital learning, and develops featured digital application courses/programs according to the needs of each college as the cornerstone of cross - domain learning; the content of the courses is based on the characteristics of each department, the nature of learning and the needs of students, to help students use relevant skills to improve their digital cross domain competitiveness through "modularization", " cross domain" and the "learner centered" teaching method.

        

        The ability ofadvancing with the times makes the enrollment of Yuan Ze University maintain a good performance, especially with the increasing demand for talents in artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of things (IOT) and Cloud, department of information and communications such as information, electrical machinery, engineering are becoming more and more popular. Even management and humanities related departments also receive attention because of cross field talent demands.

        Campus internationalization promotes global talent exchange

        

        Yuan Ze University not only develops its scientific and technological characteristics, but also attaches great importance to the degree of internationalization of the campus. Especially in the trend of sub-replacement fertility, international enrollment has become a necessary way for the university to increase its students. In the 108 academic year, the overseas students of Yuan Ze University account for 10.42% of the day classes. 870 overseas students come from 57 countries, forming an international campus. Due to the influence of cross-strait political situation, the number of the approved quota has been reduced year by year. In addition, mainland doesn’t approve the application for paying for further study in Taiwan, so the number of students from mainland has been declining. But in recent 5 years, there is still a growth of more than 10% of foreign students.

        

        In addition to expanding the source of students, Yuan Ze University hopes that overseas students can bring new stimulation to the school in terms of academic performance or international vision. According to the analysis, in the 99-107 academic years, the average graduation score of overseas students is better than that of local students in the PR; in addition, with the growth of the number of overseas students, the number of graduate thesis publications is also increasing year by year, becoming the new force of school research.

        

        On the other hand, to be in line with the New Southbound Policy of the government and recruit talented people to stay in Taiwan, in October last year, Yuan Ze University participated in the "Northern Stream of Nanyang Talents-Taipei City ICT Southern Diamond Talent convergence Plan" of Taipei Municipal Government, encouraging outstanding foreign students to stay in Taiwan after graduation. Far Eastern Group also donated 3 million yuan as scholarships, Jyh-Yang Wu, President of Yuan Ze University, donated the scholarships to the students of "Northern Stream of Nanyang Talents-Taipei City ICT Southern Diamond Talent convergence Plan". It is hoped that more enterprises would participate in the plan, outstanding foreign talents from Southeast Asia would be attracted to study in Taiwan, and stay in Taiwan after graduation and work in ICT industry, so as to enhance international competitiveness of Taiwan’s industries. In the first semester of the 108 academic year, 74 students from 8 schools, including National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University, Yuan Ze University, etc., have been awarded. In the second semester, recruitment is also open for application. It is expected that at least 4 students will graduate in the 110 academic year, contributing to Taiwan's ICT industry. Moreover, Yuan Ze University also received three subsidies from Ministry of Education for "Taiwan Experience Education Program ", encouraging international youth to come to Taiwan for internship.

        

        In addition to attracting overseas students, Yuan Ze University also actively cooperates with foreign countries. In addition to continuously promoting international exchange students, joint degrees and the establishment of overseas sister schools, Yuan Ze University also exports its core advantages overseas to cooperate with the industry to the south. Among them, Yuan Ze University cooperates with Far Eastern Polytex (Vietnam) Ltd., Fusheng Company (Vietnam) and China Steel Sumikin VN(CSVC) and other manufacturers in the “Elite talent development program”, and signed a contract with the local famous university to recruit local excellent students. In the 108 academic year, the school of management set up a "EMBA courses for innovative operation and management in Vietnam" in Ha Noi, Vietnam to recruit outstanding middle and senior management in the local industry and members of the local chamber of Commerce. In addition, the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Kasetsart University of Thailand provides an office as the education center of Yuan Ze University free of charge. Yuan Ze University even plans to cooperate with the government of Chiang Rai city of Thailand in official, teacher training courses, or planning study teams, scientific and technological research and development, hoping to become a model of the New Southbound Policy of education.

        The advantage of prospective employment, Cooperation between industry and school leads to mutual benefits and win-win situation.

        

        The purpose of university education is not only to cultivate excellent talents for the country and society, but also to meet the needs of the industry. Thanks to the diversified business fields of Far Eastern Group, Yuan Ze University has closer cooperation with the industry, which can help students quickly connect with the workplace, especially that opportunities of internship of the affiliated enterprises of Far Eastern Group for the students can help them become reserve of talents, which is equivalent to achieving the goal of "graduation is employment".

        

        On the other hand, Yuan Ze University's abundant R & D energy is also a great help to enterprise development. Taking the “Think tank project” promoted by Yuan Ze University and Far Eastern Group as an example, it uses the planning platform to meet the needs of enterprises, and starts from "consultation". The professors of think tank project share new knowledge and business information of relevant industries, provide professional technical consultation and complete implementation plan or evaluation and suggestions, which is equivalent to the think tank of enterprises, helping enterprises innovate, strengthen their R & D energy, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win.

        

        It is also worth mentioning the "Yuan Ze University AI think tank team", which combines the industry to cultivate talents in the field of AI, and improves the overall AI R & D energy of the group's affiliated enterprises. Yuan Ze University invited affiliated enterprises to convene AI think tank meeting to understand the needs of enterprises and propose solutions in the mode of "industries’ problems solved by schools"; Yuan Ze University AI think tank team actively went out of the campus to promote collaboration between industry and school, including Far Eastern fibertech big data platform, Asia Cement Corporation's Image processing technology of digital discrete signals converted from 2D graphic signals, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection’ s big data analysis and technology transfer of ETC asset prevention and maintenance, and Far Eastern International Bank’ s intelligent recommendation system of fund, etc. These are examples of close cooperation between Yuan Ze University and the group affiliated enterprises.

        

        In the medical industry, Yuan Ze University and Far Eastern Memorial Hospital have signed a five-year cooperation agreement since 2016. Through the operation mode of "academic cooperation's early research and development project", the research and development capacity of both sides has been strengthened. The project has been implemented for the fourth year so far. It uses the academic energy of the university to jointly develop long term care assistive devices, introduce AI technology, develop medical equipment, disease prediction and other medical technologies, and accelerate the development of intelligent medical solutions and application scenarios.

        

        In addition to working with FEG, Yuan Ze University was also entrusted by Industrial Development Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs to carry out the " competitiveness promotion plan in Guanyin Industrial Park " to assist manufacturers in introducing research and development energy of the school by means of dedicated services. At present, it has visited more than 200 manufacturers, and will gradually expand to the industrial zone adjacent to the school in the future, establish long-term partnership, and invite manufacturers to exchange and discuss with each other to strengthen the link with industries through mechanisms such as results announcement campaign, manufacturers' association and production and learning meeting.

        

        In order to combine university education and industrial talent cultivation, Yuan Ze University plans to organize students' workplace experience, combining theory and practice, including arranging students to have internship in enterprises and factories, project study, and other activities in the industrial zones, so that students can get in touch with career life early and strengthen their career development. Enterprises can also select qualified professionals to cultivate, and then collaboration between industry and school can be derived among professors, students and manufacturers to meet the needs of enterprises, and put the R & D resources of universities into practice.

        

        Co-exist with the local areas, play the role of local think tank

        

        Universities not only shoulder the responsibility of cultivating talents, but also the driving force to assist social progress. Through the USR program, universities can play the role of local think tanks in the process of regional development and promote regional development.

        

        Since 2017, Ministry of Education has launched the "Alliance for practice in local areas of the universities" to promote the USR pilot projects of colleges and universities. Yuan Ze University has implemented two projects: "Aida information training" and "Taoyuan cultural corridor". Among them, the first phase of "Aida information training" project selected 6 rural elementary schools in Taoyuan city to sign a memorandum of cooperation. According to the needs of elementary schools, the programming language course was designed with robot theme. Students of Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering and the other departments of the school volunteered to give lessons during summer and winter vocations, which achieved the effect of optimization as a whole and then improved their learning ability

        

        The main axis of the Tao Yuan cultural corridor is "youth guide talent training". Later, it developed into "local care", which included three subprojects, namely, cultural guide, green community and food education, and record of the field research. Taking "Bade Xiaoli" and "Zhongli Longgang" as practical fields, it cared for the development of the disadvantaged groups, culturally disadvantaged schoolchildren and green industries. In 2018, this project participated in USR Expo held by Ministry of Education for the first time. Students of "Egret Team" shared the experience and thoughts of implementing projects such as "Yongfeng high school bamboo harvest festival" and "Zhongping Road Story Museum Guide". At the beginning, they knew nothing about Taoyuan and finally they became an independent youth guide. The growth is quite remarkable. It also allows more USRr programs to continue, and promotes local innovation with youth training.

        

        University is not only the incubator of talents, but also the think tank of enterprises. It has the mission of deep ploughing into local areas, and it must keep pace with the times and move towards the world. No matter what, Yuan Ze University always links talents, enterprises and society with innovative thinking, and creates a practice field where dreams can be put into practice.