MCLA Beacon Online

By Andrew Roiter

Senior News Editor

Last semester seven students from Hebei University in China came to MCLA. Four of them left at the end of last semester, and now the final three are on their way out too.Liu Shuai, who goes by Leo, Deng Xia; who goes by Summer; and Wu Yuwei have been at MCLA for the last year and all three of them will be heading off in a few weeks.While Leo and Wu Yuwei will return to China to look for jobs, Summer said that she’ll be staying in America for graduate school.

“I came here to see if I could make it at a graduate school here. And now I’ve been accepted to a school in DC,” she said.Summer credits her time at MCLA and the people she met with giving her the confidence to enroll in graduate school in the USA. “Both my professors and the students taught me creativity, confidence, and action,” she said. “I always had ideas, but not the confidence to act.”

She went on to say that the students and professors told her that she had to believe in herself and try her ideas.She also said that she plans to spend the summer learning more about Chinese culture so that she can function as a cultural ambassador to America.Leo expressed how excited he was about finishing school and getting a job, but he said that he feels that he got a good education in American culture while he was here.

Last semester Leo went to Las Vegas, Hawaii, Los Angelos, Washington DC and other American cultural centers. “If you really want to know something you need to experience it for yourself. Someone can tell you about a place, but you don’t really know until you go there,” he said. “There were some differences in what we were told about America, and how it is.”He suggested that Americans try going to China to learn more about their culture.

Wu Yuwei agreed that it was important for students to try studying abroad.“In different environments people will think differently, their beliefs could clash with yours. [Experiencing other cultures] is important for an individual to grow,” she said.Wu Yuwei said that she really enjoyed the volunteer experience she had here, and the opportunities for learning and research that she might not have had in China. She particularly enjoyed Dr. Donald Washburn’s Power of Words class, she said.

Her favorite memory of MCLA was a going away party for the other Hebei students who left at the end of last semester, while Leo said that it was joining Dance Company that he remembered most fondly, and Summer enjoyed her TV internship the most.