Arrival and Organisation

From the very start, things ran very smoothly from an organisational point of view. I was picked up at the airport and taken straight to my own flat on campus – with a bathroom and bedroom; really, nothing to complain about. From there, it was only a few minutes’ walk to the classroom, which made day-to-day life much easier.

Teaching with Different Expectations

In the lessons themselves, I had to adapt my usual style quite a bit. In China, teaching is generally much more lecture-based, and practical work has to be broken down into a great many small, clearly defined steps. In Germany, I’ve always allowed plenty of scope for free, creative design in CAD courses – that doesn’t work here. Without strict, closely guided tasks, the class quickly loses focus: they end up sleeping or secretly playing games on their mobiles or computers.

In terms of language, the standard was rather low; I didn’t get very far with either German or English, and only a few students could speak English. So I was heavily reliant on translation, and how much ultimately got through depended noticeably on how well it was translated.

Technology: Better to be over-prepared

You definitely need a bit of improvisational skill, because sometimes a cable connection or a data transfer just doesn’t work – but that’s just as common in Germany. It’s important to have as many backup options as possible: bring your own HDMI cable and be able to set up a mobile hotspot as well as a VPN, so you’re not reliant on the on-site Wi-Fi. This makes a real difference, particularly with cloud-based software like Fusion.

Software choice and personal preparation

Fusion 360 has proved to be very well suited to this type of workshop, even though the university normally tends to work with Siemens NX. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that, but I find Fusion very well suited for getting started. As for personal preparation: you really need to be thoroughly familiar with the software you’re teaching. After a few days, I switched my programme entirely to the Chinese menu interface and operated it in Chinese myself – this is only possible if you know the programme inside out. With NX, I would probably have needed considerably more lead time to do this.

The exam – a surprise

I didn’t know in advance that there would be an exam at the end of the course, so I had to prepare for it at short notice. In the exam, the students were required to model individual components, assemble them into a moving assembly and, finally, design a housing for it.

Conclusion

For me personally, the food there was actually one of the biggest highlights – it was really, really good. And, of course, as is always the case, getting to know the local people.