This past week wraps up almost two weeks of nonstop midterm testing. It has been very stressful and had many of us pushing on with very little sleep, but it has been a good learning process to go through the struggle of midterm exams in China with my Chinese classmates. The testing process seems very similar to what one would expect back home and there were no real surprises during testing; some were writing essays and others were speaking focused activities to assess our language proficiency gains made during the last two months we’ve been studying Chinese. I have my last midterm exam this week so it will be great to finally have a break and rest for a change.
For most students though, today marks the culmination of their midterm testing, so our program held an internship session for us at a company where one of the students from last semester’s cohort is currently interning at. This company is called Covey Education, which is the motivational company started by the late author of the highly acclaimed bestseller, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey. I remember reading this book as a part of a class I had to a few years ago and I recall it being full of useful information that, along with all the material my professor teach me in that class, helped me to form effective study habits. I never foresaw myself actually getting this up close and personal with the company.
It was insightful to see how the ideas I had come to know this book for expressed in a Chinese context and in China no less. A few speakers from the company gave us a few short presentations on their work and for the most part, the content that was presented did seem to be in-line with what I remember learning in class however there was at least one difference that I noticed. This difference pertained to the great emphasis that is placed on education in China and how everyone needs to have balance in their life. There was great emphasis placed on the need to devote time to develop leadership qualities because, as the representative explained to us, everyone can be a leader with effort and guidance.
It was exciting to see one of our own classmates making great strides in a Chinese work environment with the friends that he had made among his coworkers and on top of that delivering presentations completely in Chinese while comfortably interacting with us and his Chinese team. We were all very excited for him and eager to emulate the obvious success he has achieved with his internship provider. As our cohort moves closer to the internship portion, many of us are making plans to visit different areas of China for interviews and to move forward with the process of securing an internship. This is the second portion of our program where we are required to spend four months at an internship where we can take all the Chinese that we have gained in the classroom and put it to good use in a professional setting. It is exciting and nerve-racking at the same time but after today’s presentation, we are all ready to face this internship challenge head on!
Tony in China 