Gleaning real world experience in the villages

Zhang noted that his time in the village has been a memorable one filled with many learning points. A native of Hunan province, Zhang could barely understand the Shanghai dialect when he first started serving in the village. Today, he can converse with the villagers fluently and even sports a local accent.

"I'm delighted to see that life in the village has gradually returned to normal. This experience has allowed me to grow and learn more about social management. Working in communities allows me to better understand the needs of the people compared to reading about theories in a textbook," he said.

One person featured in Zhang's video is another Fudan alumnus, Xu Yonghui, a computer science graduate who currently works as the assistant to the Party secretary of Weiji village in Shanghai's Fengxian district.

Xu said that the knowledge he gained from his time at Fudan has proved to be most useful as it has been used to improve work efficiency in village. For example, he got to design seven mini-programs, one of which digitizes repetitive work that was previously done manually. Another program takes the form of an online shopping platform that features commodities from local markets.

This experience of working in the village, said Xu, has also taught him new medical skills, such as performing nucleic acid sampling. This skill, he noted, was especially useful because it allowed him to participate in the fight against COVID-19 in Wuhan in 2020.

Over in Jianxin village, which is located in Zhujiajiao town in Shanghai's Qingpu district, Sun Tianpei has been putting the business management knowledge he picked up at Fudan to good use.

For example, after learning that residents living near the flood control areas in the village are often severely affected by extreme weathers conditions, the 30-year-old went about forging a cooperation deal between the local government and insurance companies to offer such residents compensation when necessary.

He has also been promoting the under-forest economy, or the development of forest by-products, in the village.

During the recent lockdown, Sun played a key role in coordinating with local enterprises and farms to procure laundry detergent, hand sanitizers and pork for the residents of his village.

"My ultimate aim here is to further the village's economic development and increase the incomes of the villagers," he said.