Reaching out

Justin O'Jack, chief representative of the University of Virginia's Pacific Asia Office, encourages young Americans to engage in more trips outside the US.

"These kinds of trips, where students can travel abroad and spend time in a country like China, really have a transformative impact on a young person's life," he said in an interview with China Daily, "… if their only impression of China is through the media that they consume, of course it's going to be different than experiencing it as a person here in China," he added.

O'Jack studied abroad when he was a college student, first in India and then in China.

"That experience as a student studying abroad in China definitely has influenced me in many ways, one of which is in the career that I chose — first running study abroad programs in Shanghai for American students and now representing an American university."

He said Chinese students represent the majority of international students applying to his university's undergraduate program for the current class graduating in 2030.

"Chinese students by far make up the majority of applications we received — I would say, (there are) over 10,000 applications from around the world. Over 40 percent of those were from students here in China," he said.

"The interest in studying abroad in the US continues to be very strong, especially among the undergraduate student population," he added.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a hiatus in the number of American students from his university studying in China, and now "we are seeing that start to grow and rebound", O'Jack said.

"We are not at the pre-pandemic levels yet, but we are still working and heading in the right direction," he said.