My adventure of studying abroad was really a difficult one, however, after overcoming different difficulties, I started to enjoy it in few months time, and at the end of my study, I told myself, I had no regret of giving up what I had before ( a steady and comfortable office job in an international bank), I really appreciated the chance to pursue my study dream in United states.
I had a quote with myself at that time, it was from a Chinese Poet -除志摩--
輕輕的我走了,正如我輕輕的來,我揮一揮衣袖,不帶走一片雲彩.
With this belief, I didn't care what I lost, but I enjoyed what I gained!
The first two months was really difficult for me. For the first semester, I had five courses - ENG, MATH, Accounting, Physical Education, and a science course (Agriculture - Food supply). As the college emphasized liberal art education, we took all kinds of courses to have a knowledge in all fields.
Besides the classes, I needed to work 10-15 hours as my labor assignment.
The first semester's English class was an intensive one, to compensate our (international students') standard with the first year's American students' .
Most of the international students had to join in this class -we met four times a week, at 8 AM every morning, no matter whether it was raining or snowing, no absence was allowed.
It was good though, as I had the excuse to be not assigned for the breakfast shift in the restaurant in weekday - the shift started at 7AM.
We talked in groups, read Newspaper, discussed with the Professors and wrote a lot of journals - Dr. S was very nice to us.
The most difficult one was the compulsory science course, as per some suggestions, I registered the food supply course(elective - it was kind of related to economics), and at the beginning I thought I would be interested to learn about things related to FOOD.
This turned out that it was the most difficult course for me in Berea - the problem was I didn't have sufficient vocabularies, I didn't know most of the vocabularies in the lessons - at that time, I even didn't have a good Chinese/English dictionary, and spending time to look for the meanings really wasted a lot of my study time.
At the very beginning, as I was new and I didn't know how to find the way to solve the problem ( later in the studies, I had different challenges too, but I knew how to solve them and faced them), it annoyed me a lot, therefore I expressed my feelings, kind of saying I would like to quit for the study.
Dr. S read my journal, and called me to her office, she encouraged me that it was in college, we should learn how to solve our own problems, we should not think of giving up easily to solve the problems.
Getting her advice, I also shared my difficulties to my roommate, she told me to talk with the students from China.
By doing that, with messages passed one by one, and finally I met Charley, who was a Agriculture Major student. We first met in food service, he was very patience, and explained the lessons to me, he also gave me good advises on how to prepare for the lessons, as he knew Dr. Johnstone's style.
Therefore, realising that I was quite behind, I needed to study even more harder, I was also lucky enough to get the notes from Crystal (a sophomore, we were in the same class and we also worked in Boone Tavern), she was nice to lend me her class notes ( I couldn't get much during the class - remember this was my first semester!!)
To compensate my shortages, I memorised a lot of the lessons, and at the end of term, I successfully got A-!!!
One comment on facing challenges - I remember I once met a pilot, kind of interviewed him, and he told me the most challenging part of driving aeroplane was taking off the plane, therefore, the first few minutes was very critical and crucial for the task.
I quite agree with that, we should get ourselves be prepared, and be more patient to face with the difficulties in the early phases.
Don't Give Up easily !!
No comments:
Post a Comment