November 2008 Archives

As an international student from China, I really like the diversity here. In my eyes, we have a fantastic community - IST: our people have different cultures and backgrounds. During the past one year, this diversified climate always stimulates my desire to learn , to communicate and to share with others.



Culture is the essence of a nationality. In culture, there are spirits, beliefs and legends. I took culture as my interest since I was a kid and I always regard learning different cultures as one of my most enjoyable activities. I would like to know what makes a nationality unique and what they believe in. From the image below, we can observe the different aspects regarding to a culture. Among those I prefer the aspects of art, street life and architecture.

Graduate school provides me a great environment to know people from other countries. Implicitly, this also gives me good opportunities to learn different cultures. I have made friends from Thailand, Korea, America, and Europe. When chatting with them, we made many funny moments, result from the differences among cultures. For example, American student always cannot understand why college students in China rarely go to bars. Actually, they are very surprised when hearing this. Then, I need to explain to them the reasons, related to Chinese policies and Chinese education. Through this explanation, both of us can get a better understanding about not only the cultures, but also the people and the countries. I  like this free and interactive communication style and it really brought me a lot of happiness.

Everyone has his/her own way to organize the graduate study and life. As for me, graduate life gives me a brand new experience. Before and after I joined graduate school, I changed a lot. I changed from a child to an adult, I changed from a student to a scholar, and above all, I changed from a knowledge-receiver to a continuous thinker. Graduate study gives me so many hints for my own life and it really stimulates my enthusiasm for exploring, thinking and communicating. To summarize, this period really helps me to know who I am, what I want to do, and which way I should go.



This is my way to lead my graduate life.
1) Hard working. I want to say that no matter which phase you are at, the basic thing for graduate students is doing good jobs. We need to work hard and show that we are capable enough to do thing well.
2) Making friends. There is a saying in China: you can rely on your family when you are near them, but when you far from them, the only thing you can rely on is your dear friends. This is very true. Friends is the most important part of my life and I always treat them as my families.
They do always support me when I need help and they never made me feel lonely.
3) Communication. As for me, I think communication is an integral skills for one to head to success. Through chatting with others, I found I can learn so much from them, communication skills, the experiences and most of all, the opportunities. It is also a saying in China: among three persons, at lease one can be your teacher. 
4) Writing. To be honest, I do not like writing, but recently I forced me to write regularly. I have realized the importance of it. In my viewpoint, if one cannot write, it means that he has lost the entrance to impress and record himself.
5) Finally, I like Good food, Good sleep, and Good play. I hope Enjoy myself and Look for fun. But before that, I always checked if I have done all the jobs that I should do.