The library at NTU

This summer I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of months in Taipei, Taiwan studying Mandarin Chinese at the International Chinese Language Program. It was a great experience and probably one my best summers ever – meeting new people, exploring a new place, and really improving my Chinese through intensive study.

Some of my cooler experiences from Taiwan involved language exchanges with local friends. I met with two Taipei residents, Angela and Lynn, separately usually once a week, and we would alternate between English and Mandarin conversation for a couple of hours.

It turns out that language exchange is a pretty common practice at National Taiwan University (NTU), where my language program was located. The language center on campus had tons of flyers from people seeking exchange partners, as did the bulletin board in the lobby of my dormitory (although it was actually a mutual friend who initially introduced me to Angela and Lynn).

Read the rest of this entry »

My bags are packed, my final papers submitted, my apartment sublet, and as of next week I’ll be gone from George Washington University and the United States until the end of August.  It’s been a fast nine months, but I’ve officially reached the halfway point of my two-year graduate school program.

To mark reaching the end of year one, I’ve put together some superlatives for my first year at graduate school:

Biggest Adjustment:

Working on a class assignment

My first blog post last October was all about the workload difference between graduate school and undergrad.

Having to read 1,000 pages a week for class, depending on the week, was pretty miserable sometimes.  There were definitely some long nights in the library where I wanted to be anyplace else.

Read the rest of this entry »

Working on a class assignment

By the end of this semester I will have a total of seven graduate-level classes under my belt.

Although different professors have had different teaching styles, I think I’m finally getting used to what to expect from a graduate school political science or history class.

A lot of class discussion

All but one of my graduate school classes have had less than twenty students. Such a small class size means that participation in class discussions is often a large part of our final grade (about 20-25%). Even if it isn’t, our professors always make clear that they expect us to actively raise points and engage with one another in class.

Read the rest of this entry »

Creative commons photo by Flickr user alexandralee

It’s a little crazy that my spring break ended just a couple days ago, but already the end of the semester is only a few weeks away. By the end of April, I’ll have finished all of my regular classes and will only have a couple of final papers left to turn in. I’ll be able to say goodbye to my responsibilities as a George Washington University student for three and a half long months.

As an undergrad, summer break meant going home to New Jersey for a few months, working a low-stress job as a groundskeeper or warehouse worker, and usually bumming around during my free time. As a graduate student though, since my program is all about professional development, it’s tough to get away with just going home for the summer. Almost all of my classmates have an internship, job, or some cool project already lined up.

For my own part, I’m fortunate because the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at my university awarded me a generous grant to study Mandarin in Taiwan this summer. It’s a pretty awesome deal, and I’m really psyched about it, but it was definitely a process getting there. There are a couple of things that I think helped me out along the way:

Getting started early

Read the rest of this entry »

Our student organization logo.

At the end of last semester, I was elected president of the Organization of Asian Studies at my university.  It’s a pretty cool deal – the school gives us a lot of support to host fun events, like foreign movie nights, happy hours, and special receptions, and we also sponsor speakers to give special talks on Asia-related topics.

All George Washington University students interested in Asian studies are welcome to join, and we attract a pretty even balance of international students and Americans and graduate students and undergrads.  Two of our five executive board officers are from Asian countries (Taiwan and South Korea), and three of us are graduate students.

Since we’re about five weeks into our spring semester, and we’ve hosted or co-hosted seven events, I thought I’d share some general thoughts on what it’s been like so far.

Read the rest of this entry »

I tend to ease into the same comfortable and predictable schedule every year when I return home for a winter break from school:

√ Christmas Eve: Visit cousins and eat copiously

√ Christmas Day: Exchange gifts with family and eat copiously

√ New Year’s Eve: Celebrate with old high school friends, eat copiously and drink champagne

√ Every day: Do anything but work

Going home to New Jersey and falling into this routine is like gravity to me.  My sister is home from college, my dad is home because our farm is off-season, my mom is home extra days from the office, and my old friends are home from school or wherever else.  I have a lot of people to take it easy with, and, anyway, the holidays are supposed to be the time of year when just loafing around is okay.

Read the rest of this entry »

My old college roommate jetted into town last weekend for a conference with his New York law firm.  He’s the kind of guy who at 26 already has the key pieces of his life put together.  He graduated from NYU law school in May, proposed to his longtime girlfriend in August while vacationing in Europe, moved into a spacious Manhattan apartment in October, and started working at a multinational firm in November.  Basically, he’s one of those people who I always feel like I’m playing catch-up with.

How competitive is graduate school?

Seeing my roommate got me thinking about competition and rivalry in graduate school.  To what extent do grad students compare themselves to one another and worry about getting ahead?  The stereotype for me has always been that school gets really competitive as you move up the ladder.  I’ve heard horror stories about graduate students at elite universities hiding books from one another and stealing notes to make sure they get the best grade in the class.  Everyone wants so badly to succeed, and there’s only so much room at the top.

Read the rest of this entry »

Social life for a graduate student can be very different than for an undergraduate student.  Gone are the days of dorm and fraternity parties.  In my experience, happy hours are a new pillar of social life.  Happy hours easily fit into a grad student’s tight schedule, help build community amongst students who otherwise only interact in the classroom, and create opportunities for networking with academics and professionals in one’s field.

Friday Night OAS Happy Hour at Nooshi

And, perhaps most importantly, any light-walleted and heavily-indebted graduate student can appreciate that, for a couple of hours on certain days, certain drinks will be offered at significantly reduced prices – sometimes for more than half-off the usual price.

A lot of student groups will organize events around happy hours or daily drink specials.  For example, the Graduate Student Forum, the largest student group at the Elliott School, is responsible for organizing a range of academic, professional, and social activities for graduate students.  I would estimate about 75% of their activities somehow involve going out to a local bar.  They host their popular “Thursday Night Out” at a different hotspot every week, and they take pains to point out weekly drink specials in their many reminder emails.

Read the rest of this entry »

I sometimes think of my graduate program at George Washington University as a rite of passage.  It helps keep me motivated through those 12 hour days in the library, when I worry that I’m wasting the prime years of my life cooped-up in books.

Students at the Global Resources Center

I remember what my political science professor said on our first day of class: “If you’re a graduate student, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be reading all the time.”  He was talking about the trials of graduate study and his personal approach to teaching.  Of course, last week he appropriately assigned 553 pages on the comparative historical analysis of revolutionary change.

I think a lot of professors share that mindset though.  I met last April with my former Russian literature professor, who gave similar advice that, as a young man at this point in my life, I should be working my fingers to the bone.  His exact words: “Now’s the time to be like Stoltz!” – a particularly industrious, and awesome, character from Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov.

Read the rest of this entry »