Education enkindles, emancipates, and empowers human beings. International education is expensive and difficult. It is also valuable for its cross-cultural content. With its culture-interplaying nature, international students serve as social-reform catalysts.
Francesco Petrarca, one of the fathers of the Renaissance , crossed European countries to recover and translate Latin manuscripts, showed the posterity a way to gain achievements in foreign studies . Having a culture that exalts education, China has accommodated cross-culture studying, teaching, and working ever since the Spring-Autumn and Warring States periods (475 B.C. - 221 B.C.), wherein Confucianism was just one of the 100 established Chinese schools.
To be well-educated is prestigious in China. Nevertheless, the expenses of education are not the only issue that barricades the pursuit of education therein. The notification of 2006 Chinese graduate-school entrance examinations carries a rule that has been effective since 1978, which shuts Chinese over 40 out of the door to graduate studies in China. [1]
To the contrary, American education is a wonderland for anyone who wants to pursue degrees in any of his or her life stages. It does not limit the number of degrees one desires. It never restrains the age or marriage status of those who want to attend an American university. And it offers the needy students with financial aid from federal, local, public, and private communities.
International eduation has cultivated my ability to think critically and bilaterally. Participating in various events, like proficient speeches, programs of excellence, on-campus recruiting events, and internships catered to my diverse interests, offered me in-depth understanding of the academic environment and social contexts, and delineated possibilities to apply my interests to other scholarly fields that reconcile my journalism degree and my life experiences.
International study reforms my inner essence. I have learned from my American friends how to manage life and time as well as decline unnecessary activities in a sincere but gratified way. I also learned from an international student that it is not only sustainable to eat less than one desires but also salubrious to share foods with others in need. Her eating philosophy prompts me to pursue a life of supernal satisfaction rather than that of material success.
Journalism study in the U.S. enriches the sustenance of my life. One possibility, backed by professional journalism and a way to practice journalism in a world without boundaries, is to freelance on the Internet. The study has provoked my interests to break down barriers of languages and ideologies. With the ability to write and think in a multilateral and objective manner, I have started a Web space to introduce American social contexts in Chinese and to review Chinese culture in English, which intends to get round of censorship from media and governments.
Addressing China-U.S. relationships in terms of human rights, bilateral economic development, and environmental issues, my space calls attention to a nutritional symbiosis. International study makes introvert difference to a journalism student, who then make the world a little bit different through her extrovert communications.
[1] China Education Ministry. Basic guides to 2006 graduate study examinations. Data retrieved December 12, 2005 from Dong Fang Fei Long (Eastern Flying Dragon) Web: http://www.kaoyan-pku.com/information/baokaobidu.asp . Prerequisites for graduate study examination takers ( Nov. 16, 2005). Data retrieved December 12, 2005 from Netease: http://education.163.com/05/1116/11/22M780U600291MCS.html
