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While the HNC offers a great selection of courses taught by stellar faculty, one class particularly stood out during the 2017 fall semester. Student blogger, Alexandra Hansen reflects on her experience in a piloted bilingual taught course, China and America: A Cross Cultural Dialogue (中国与美国：文化对话课). The Hopkins-Nanjing Center is well known for being a one-of-a-kind graduate center for students pursuing international studies. In line with the HNC’s mission to train graduates in Sino-global relations, the HNC is inherently effective in creating a cross-cultural educational experience. The courses taught at the HNC are varied in discipline, but accomplish the same goal: they inform and guide students in their study of China, the United States, and global relations through target-language curriculum. While I have enjoyed many courses I have taken at the HNC, one in particular has stood out as my favorite: “China and America: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue (中国与美国：文化对话课).” Part of a series of new ...

Emily Rivera (Certificate ’18) shares her experience choosing classes at the HNC and tips on overcoming the learning curve. During orientation week at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, students gathered in the auditorium to listen to the international and Chinese faculty present on the courses they would teach that semester. As an HNC Certificate student, students are required to take a minimum of three courses per semester in their target language. Students also have the option to take an additional fourth course in their non-target language. At my undergraduate university, I was a Government and Chinese double major. At the beginning of orientation, I naturally gravitated towards government and politics courses. However, after much thought, I decided I wanted to take courses that I would only be able to take in China and particularly, courses unique to the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. I decided that I wanted to explore other areas of China studies and really challenge myself by expanding my voc...

Student blogger, Alexandra Hansen shares her photos taken during the first two weeks of spring semester. This week’s wordless Wednesday features photos of the spring semester banwei (student committee) elections, a day-trip to Suzhou, Nanjing’s plum blossom hill (梅花山), a massive bookstore located in a parking garage down the street from campus, and the HNC basketball semi-finals game . Photos by Alexandra Hansen, Certificate '18

As the HNC spring semester gets underway, I thought it would be a good time to offer some advice from their predecessors as to how to make this last semester at the HNC really count. The first semester involves so much learning and constant improvements, and keeping that pace up through the second will ensure students get just as much out of their second semester. Tip 1: Consider a more challenging class: In the fall, it can be tempting to go for a more manageable workload – be it taking classes with subjects you are more comfortable with, or ones with relatively fewer readings on the syllabus.  In the spring, you have a semester of graduate level Chinese classes under your belt, and it’s time for some of those more intimidating, challenging classes! I did this with taking Econometrics which involved both theory and the practical skills of learning how to use the program STATA. Another option might be to take a discussion seminar, like the Advanced Seminar in US-China Relations. Y...

Photos by Emily Rivera, Certificate '18

Jessica Wong graduated from Wesleyan University in 2009 and received her Master of Arts in International Studies (MAIS) in 2011 from the Hopkins-Nanjing Center after studying in Nanjing for two years. Since 2014, she has worked as a Business Risk Intelligence Manager at Abbott Laboratories. How did you find yourself at the HNC? Part of my major requirement to earn an East Asian Studies degree when I was in college was to spend a semester abroad, so I decided to go to China - and I loved the experience. My mentor at the time in college told me in order to become a “China hand” you have to go to China and spend significant time in the country. So, I applied and was accepted to the HNC MAIS two-year degree program. At the time, I was also interested in doing more research in China. Being of Cantonese descent, I have a lot of connections in Guangdong, so I knew I wanted to do research there for my master’s thesis. I have very fond memories of my time at HNC. I had a good two years there. I...

Current student, Amanda Bogan, MAIS '18, shares her experience of celebrating Chinese New Year in Shanxi province and also taking some of the holiday to do her thesis research.  After the Chinese New Year holiday, many HNC students returned from trips to exotic locales both inside and outside of China. Students will often use the long winter holiday to travel around Asia; some went to Korea for the Olympics, while others explored nearby Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand. Still other students took advantage of the break to conduct valuable field research on their thesis topics. HNC student Su Mengfei (MAIS ‘18), for example, spent several weeks working at an NGO in rural Cambodia, doing research on ecotourism while learning about local social issues and how a grassroots organization is operated. While traveling throughout Vietnam and Cambodia, Margie Tanner (MAIS ’18) conducted interviews with human rights NGOs which provide legal assistance to victims of trafficking who are awaiting re...