Chinese is both an easy and incredibly difficult language to learn - it totally depends on the method used and who is teaching you. If you want to try traditional teaching methods through textbooks, online, etc, you *may* have a very rudimentary tourist vocabulary by the fall - and not much else.

I strongly suggest investing in an online tutor (or in person depending on your location) who teaches using TPRS/CI which is a scientifically proven method of learning any foreign language incredibly fast and making grammar structures intuitive - it's still on you to memorize vocabulary on your own time and practice what you learn, as there is no scientific method of making vocabulary magically appear in your brain, but TPRS and CI make the process easier.

I can refer you to two US-based teachers I know personally and who I've studied with. I've been learning for almost one year and have a generalized vocabulary of over 400 words for spoken Chinese (although it's not easy for me to recall what I need when I need it, but that's just more practice) and using the pinyin-character translation keyboard on my computer, I can write my own stories. Textbook or traditional method students learning 1-2 hours a week would be years behind me.

For your trip, you'll need 85% conversational and 15% reading skills, and TPRS is the fastest path to achieving that. PM me and I can refer you to someone, but you're looking at about $50 per session and you'll need at least 3 per week to be ready for the fall, but if you want to be on the path to basic fluency, and use your time in China to improve upon what you learned up to departure, this is the best way.