In a little over a day I am going to leave my home in Atlanta for a long journey to Beijing (nearly 18 hours). I have yet to pack my stuff, but I am not too worried as I am trying to take the bare necessities that I won't be able to find over in China because a lot of things are readily available in China. I am going to study Mandarin Chinese in China for about 5 months, and I will leave Beijing right after the Chinese New Year in early February. I started this blog in order to record some of my experiences in China and to provide students considering to study abroad in China a resource on how they can make the most out of their trip.
This is going to be my second time in Beijing, as I went to study at Tsinghua University through a program at my university back in the US last summer for 8 weeks. I had a great time over there and really saw my ability to pick up Chinese accelerate, so I'm hoping to continue advancing my proficiency in Chinese while seeing some parts of Beijing that I missed out on last time. I have been studying Mandarin Chinese for the past 2 years at my university, so I do have a decent background in speaking and understanding the language. I know I can get a lot better, and I'm hoping that by the end of these next 5 months, I will be able to carry on a conversation with a native Beijinger almost as fluently as I can communicate in English. It's going to take a lot of hard work to get there, but I feel confident in my abilities to pick up the language, and the fact that I already have a solid foundation in the language, I will really be able to accelerate my proficiency much more quickly than someone starting from scratch.
I will be studying at the Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) in their Chinese Language program. It is located very near Tsinghua University, so I will be very familiar with my surroundings which will be nice. I didn't get to see much of BLCU's campus last summer, but I did go there a couple of times to play volleyball. This experience is going to be different though because I won't be going with 50 other kids from my university. That was really helpful last time because we were able to get really close to each other, explore the city together, and share a lot of the experience of being in a very new environment and setting. This time around I am pretty much going to be on my own, and I won't really be able to use English as a crutch to communicate to people because my classmates at BLCU are more likely to be from other non-English speaking countries, so that is a plus in some aspects. I am pretty excited to create my own experience this time rather than have my experience create for me through my university's program.
Finally, I want to mention a very important resource for anyone considering to study abroad anywhere in the world: MAKE USE OF SCHOLARSHIPS!!! Studying abroad can be very expensive depending on the country you are going to, and that deters so many people from trying to go somewhere new, but through the use of scholarships, you can really make things much easier for yourself in making a study abroad experience possible. I was fortunate enough to receive the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship this summer and it is really the main reason I am able to go on this trip, so I would definitely recommend anyone to look into it in order to make your trip financially possible. I will also try to upload videos weekly to my Youtube channel, so do check on that to get a glimpse of what I am doing in China.
So ready or not, here I come Beijing! Feel free to leave any comments or questions about studying or living in China in the comments section below. You can also contact me by email (link is in my bio). That's it for now and I will catch you guys on the other side of the Pacific.
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