Dialogue with post-90s entrepreneur Li Lin: Helping students cross the triathlon

During my sophomore year in business administration at the University of Pittsburgh, I was faced with the choice of returning home or taking credits, and I had the idea of moving american universities back to China, and by chance, I turned my personal dilemma into the beginning of a new industry. In the past 8 years, the CHINA University Summer Schools Association founded by Li Lin, a post-90s Hubei boy, has become the largest and most successful international summer school alliance in China.

When New Oriental and other local education groups targeted Nashi to ring the bell, Li Lin went in the opposite direction, bringing the most popular transfer credit service and summer school model in North America back to China, and the author spoke with Li Lin, founder of CUSSA and CEO of Wuhan Hansheng Guanghua Cultural Education Investment Co., Ltd., to pay attention to the development and trend of international study abroad education with him.

Encountered difficult problems and created a trend of returning international students to summer schools

In 2010, Li Lin entered the University of Pittsburgh in the United States to start a study abroad career, fast-paced classrooms, language barriers, cultural barriers, so that he was extremely uncomfortable, there is a western literary history to read Shakespeare is also hung up. American university education implements a credit system, and academic failure makes Li Lin feel that he may not be able to complete the credits required for graduation in 4 years.

He soon learned that there were not a few Chinese students who faced this problem, and many of them would go to the "summer school", that is, the credit-based summer school, and use the vacation time to complete the course. But homesick and eager, he also hopes to return to China during the summer vacation to accompany his parents and friends, so he thinks why not put the summer school model in China?

In the summer of 2012, he and his team successfully opened the first international summer course class at Wuhan University, and used the vacation to invite professors from famous foreign universities to China to teach undergraduate academic courses to overseas Chinese students who returned home.

The origin is very simple, purely do not want to delay graduation, the start-up model is also very simple, students word of mouth, the first year of the school almost half of the students are from Pittsburgh classmates. At that time, 200 students successfully participated in the program and transferred their credits back to their universities abroad.

After doing the first year, I found that the response of students and parents was very good, one was to help them graduate early, and the other was to save a lot of study abroad costs, which reduced the financial burden on many families studying abroad, so that more families with not so good economic conditions could also let their children study abroad, And Li Lin was determined to continue to do a good job in the project.

Rapid development, leading the international education pioneer platform

The entrepreneurial community is confused to find the right outlet, but some entrepreneurs are born in the outlet. Li Lin was fortunate to find his way from the immersive pain points.

North American Summer School, North American Winter School, Australian Summer School... Wuhan University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Beijing University of Technology, Ocean University of China, Shanghai Normal University, Chongqing University, Sichuan Normal University, Nanchang University, Taiwan Sun Yat-sen University, the rapid increase in students, but also brought more partners, the growth of the cause made the team very happy. The project has obtained international authoritative certifications such as CDGDC of the Ministry of Education, JS&A, CHESICC, IERF, global WES, etc., and its campus also has AACSB certification of the global elite business school.

In the eight years since 2011, CUSSA has helped more than 10,000 overseas Chinese students use their summer home time to earn overseas graduation credits, achieving rapid graduation and saving a lot of study abroad costs. Tens of thousands of families have saved the academic pressure and financial burden of their children studying abroad.

The future is unlimited, helping students to cross the triathlon

Behind the success is extraordinary hardship, "domestic and foreign often fly on both sides, often working with the domestic team during the day, and working with the team in the United States at night." Li Lin is very grateful to the like-minded entrepreneurial partners who have helped him share a lot of pressure. Supporting him through the road of entrepreneurship, in addition to the strength of the team, there is also a good body, usually insist on fitness, swimming, since 2007, he has participated in many national triathlons, the best result is the sixth in the country.

"Let the study abroad life no longer have any difficulties", Li Lin, who started from solving the pain points in studying abroad, slowly found that for an international student, there is also a similar "study abroad triathlon", that is, the adaptation to foreign education before and early enrollment, the various learning and life problems in study, and the employment mark after completion. Pain points are growth points, starting from the summer school, Li Lin led CUSSA to continuously expand its business space.

Help more Chinese students and parents to successfully cross the triathlon study abroad. "In the next few years, in addition to North America and Australia, which CUSSA has covered, we will gradually extend to Europe and other regions. At the same time, our own study abroad brand and international student job search brand will also be launched in the second half of this year, providing more professional and high-quality services for overseas Chinese students and prospective students, so that studying abroad is no longer difficult, so that study abroad life is no longer difficult. Li Lin is full of confidence in the development of the industry and believes that there is unlimited imagination in the future.