Background

Can you briefly introduce yourself and your background?

My name is Doris and I moved to the US with my family when I was 12. I’m currently working for the American Councils for International Education as the resident director for the Chinese overseas flagship program and this is my second year post graduation. I graduated from George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs with double majors in international affairs and English & Creative Writing. I joined in GCC in my sophomore year. I’ve been a part of GCC for almost 5 years now. After I ended my term in global team, I chose to stay with the board of trustees and I plan to be involved in GCC as long as I can.

Could you please share your experience at GCC? What was your most memorable experience?

I was part of GCC since my sophomore year at college and I was the VP of GW chapter at that time. Later during my junior year, I was promoted to be the president and then I was elected to be the president of GCC Global Team. The overall experience in GCC has been very memorable to me. I think my college experience wouldn’t be the same without GCC because a lot of memorable experience that I’ve had in college has been related to GCC.

My university GW itself is a very politically active school community, so that is why I think GW ‘s most event at least the events that I’ve held are related to global affairs and mostly related to US china relations. I guess there are two most memorable experiences for me at GCC. The first experience was joining the Cornell global summit. At that time, I was already part of GCC GW chapter, but I didn’t really know the existence of global team that hold different GCC chapters together. Going to the Cornell summit was my first time seeing GCC members all over the world. I saw people even coming from Canada to join the Cornell summit, and a lot of them drove hours from Toronto and Montreal to Cornell campus and it made a big impression on me because until then I knew there are actually more GCC members and we are really a big organization. I don’t remember a lot of the content of the summit, but it was the idea that we have many chapters around the world that shocked me. This memorable experience about GCC actually prompted me to join in the global team.

And the second one was definitely when I became the global team president. Among my experiences being part of the global team, it was the global summit that made the biggest impression on me. It was my second semester of senior year, and that summit took place in my own school at GW. As the global team president I was very involved in that summit, and we luckily secured many very brilliant figures. We had the previous US ambassador to China, J Stapleton Roy,  and we had him as our keynote speaker. We also had the first ever Asian US ambassador, Julia Chang Block, and we had her to be our closing keynote speaker. And we also had the CEO of the US China Business Council and Greater China desk of JP Morgan (Chicago). We had all these very well-known speakers to join our summit and we were able to invite C-SPAN, to come and live  broadcast our events and you can now also see the record about summit in their library online. I think overall it was a great summit. And since it was my last semester at college, first I had to plan this summit and be very involved in it, and second I had to find a full time job because I was graduating soon, and I also had my internship with the GW Confucius Institution at that time, so I was kind of juggling and keeping up my grades at school. That was a lot of work for me but it was also why it was so memorable. I learned a lot during that year such as time management and always be courageous. You may think going up to all these people and invite them would be very intimidating, but at that time I just went all out and made it. I guess it was because I deeply believe that GCC is such a great organization and we deserve all these great speakers. And I guess it was also because that people are very friendly in DC and a lot of them said yes to my invitation and we didn’t pay a penny to any of our speaker for coming to our event. I think these two are my most memorable experiences at GCC.

Could you share a specific event you held in GCC? How did your experience with GCC help you in your later career or in your life?

I think GCC helped me a lot in not only finding my internships but also in my full time job. I joined GCC and we held multiple events especially when I became the VP and president of GW chapter. I took leads to hold many events. I think GCC gave me the platform to exercise the skills that I already have and develop the skills that I don’t have. During my sophomore or junior year, there are tons of ofo bikes on the streets of Washington DC and so an idea popped up in my mind. I was think about inviting the ofo people to come and speak at our events, and maybe invite some think tank scholars so they can exchange their ideas on ofo and offer ofo’s vision in the US. I think that event would be perfect as a GCC event because our audience at GW GCC is half Chinese and half Americans. Since Americans have never seen ofo bikes before, they would be interested in learning more about these new bikes. And Chinese students would also be very interested in it because ofo bikes are from their own hometown China and now they are in Washington DC. So I went ahead on ofo website, found the contact information, and sent an invitation email. It turned out that the ofo representatives were based in San Francisco, and when they received our invitation they were very surprised but they were also interested in our events. They said yes and they would come all the way from San Francisco to DC to join our event. So I secured 2 ofo representatives, and then I just reached out to one of the scholars that was specialized in online transaction and online security, and I send invitation to her from CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) and she also said yes. I also invited one of our economic professors from GW, so now we have 3 different perspectives and we finally made that event. Organizing that event itself was very encouraging for myself. As a sophomore at that time, holding that event was a huge confidence boost for myself. It helped me build a small network in the DC area and helped me form the idea that I can really do things that I’ve been always wanting to do.

Internship Advice

You had multiple exciting internship experiences and they are closely related to international relations. Could you please share your experience in finding those internships as an undergraduate student? How did you transfer your skills and knowledge learned at GCC into those professional work?

I got my first internship at Radio Free Asia in my freshman year summer, and that was through one of my friends. And my next internship with Confucius Institute, and I got that job purely because of GCC. Our previous GCC member who already graduated had to hand on his job to someone else. Previously we didn’t know each other, but he saw the events that I’ve been hosting and thought that I would be a good fit for this position so he reached out to me and referred me to my boss at Confucius Institute to become a student ambassador for GW Confucius Institute. I went in a simple interview and then I got the job. In this job, I did a lot of events planning and built a lot of skills that are necessary for my long-term career development. Later on, I got one of the most memorable internship experience with the US-Asia Institute (USAI).  we worked a lot with Congress and Senate. We basically provide policy advice and we host events to educate Congress and Senate on decision making regards to US-Asia affairs. At that time, they were hiring a political affairs program assistant with good event planning skills, with good connections at the area, and with good knowledge about US Asian affairs and I happended to qualify for the candidate that they were looking for. I said so because I already have a lot of experience organizing these events through GCC so during my interview I was able to share all the events I held and my open mindedness for inviting speakers from different perspectives, which matched USAI’s expectation– they want people to share their thoughts about the same topics but from different angles. I think this is also part of GCC’s mission that we really want to bring people together from everywhere that cares about the same topic. We don’t really need to have the same idea about US-China relations, but at least we all care about US and China. So I think GCC really helped with my internships, and my GCC experiences together with my internship experiences help me eventually got my full-time job here with American Council.

Currently, you are working at American Councils for International Education. Could you please share your experience in finding your current job?

I’m currently in China and I’m working as an American aspect in China for a term of two to three years. I think at least 60% or 70% of the reason I got the job is because my GCC experience. I remember filling out my application for this job and the first question they asked was have you had any experiences leading student organizations. My answer is of course. My entire college has been about leading student organizations and working with students. So in the interview I was able to share my event management experiences and how I lead student groups and how I motivate team members in GCC. And I successfully got my current job.

What does a typical day look like for you? How does Covid-19 affect your work?

I started my current job from last year around July. I flew to China and settled in Nanjing. This is actually my first time visiting Nanjing in my life. My typical day is that I have to go to office and I don’t necessary have any colleagues because I am the sole American representative on the ground in China.

In our Chinese overseas flagship program, each student selected has been taking Chinese 2 to 3 years at their own school in the US and they would be very good at Chinese already. In their capstone years which is their final year, before they complete the program they would come to China and study. Our Chinese partner Nanjing University would be in charge of their first semester of the capstone year and students would take intensive Chinese classes there. For the second semester which is their internship semester and I am mainly responsible for it. I would help them finding internship related to their own field of interest in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Nanjing. Students would secure an internship and go off to these cities and intern with companies. For their first semester, I would be in office and answer those students’ questions about internships and walk them through the process. For the second semester when they’re off to these cities, I would conduct site visits to their companies to see how they’re doing at their internship, and to build connections with their internship providers so that they would accept more students from our program in the future. In February this year, we had to evacuate all of our American students back to the US within a week because Covid-19. For me, because my family was in China so I stayed here and I’m happy about my decision right now. Because Covid situation is still pretty bad in the US and we’re not sending any students to China as for now, our program has been moved to online for last semester and also the upcoming semester. In the short term, my day would just be working from home to take phone calls, reply emails, work on our website, and contact different parties.

Advice

Do you have any other advice for college students or recent graduates?

1) Cherish your time in college and go travel. During college, I always think to myself I want to graduate and earn money by myself. But looking back, I really miss college.  have fun and visit many places during college. I had good time in college because I enrolled in an exchange program in Japan in my freshman summer. I also went to King’s College in London for a semester and I went travel to Europe during that semester. So really have fun during college because this is going to be the only time that you will be able to do so without any pressure.

2) Find something you are really interested in. It can be an organization, a project, an internship, or just baking. Try to explore your potential, really stick with one thing and make most out of it.

3) Make real friends and build meaningful connections. I find it hard to make friends in workspace, and your college friends would be the ones that you can always talk to and the ones you can count on, so make friends in college that you can get support from even after graduation.

4) Be courageous. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes in college because this will be the only time you can do so. No matter how foolish you think you might look in front of others, they will forgive you because you are a college student and that wouldn’t happen when you are at the workspace or in graduate school.