clair065

Tarela spent a year at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center from 2016 to 2017 and is currently at Johns Hopkins SAIS to complete her Masters of Arts with a concentration in China studies.  Tarela and her roommate after the HNC graduation ceremony 欢迎你们来到中美中心的博客!  I am excited to share my experiences with you as a Hopkins-Nanjing Center (HNC) certificate graduate and candidate for the Johns Hopkins University SAIS MA.  My Background: I was born in Nigeria and grew up in Columbus, Ohio. My interest in China began during undergrad at Duke University, where I studied political science and Chinese. During my time at Duke, I studied abroad in Beijing, Kunshan, and Suzhou. My China experiences challenged me to step out of my comfort zone linguistically and culturally. I loved my time abroad and wanted to return after graduation. The Hopkins-Nanjing Center certificate program was perfect because it catered to my academic interests (international relations and Chinese) and adventurous perso...

In the weeks leading up to my arrival at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, the thing that weighed on my mind the most was the worry of taking graduate level classes in Chinese. Never mind that this was what had attracted me to the program in the first place – that was back in 2015, when September 2016 felt very far away indeed. The problem of course being that not only did we have to listen to all the information in class, but we were expected to retain it and use it to write papers! In my heart of hearts, I had no idea how I was going to rise to the challenge. Presenting on the use of Renewable Portfolio Standards in the U.S. One of my first classes was Policy Instruments for Environmental and Resource Management, taught by Professor Liu Beibei of the Nanjing University School of the Environment. As soon as the seven of us sat down in the classroom, our energetic professor immediately started firing questions at us: what were the most important environmental issues facing the world today? W...

After completing a year of study in Nanjing, HNC Certificate/Johns Hopkins SAIS MA student Clarise Brown, started her studies at SAIS in Washington, DC. During her first semester at SAIS, Clarise had the opportunity to put her studies into practice at her internship with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sub-Committee on Asia & Pacific.  In September of last year, North Korea launched yet another missile, violating not only the rules of international law I had chosen to dedicate my career to, but also every warning the U.S. had issued. How would the U.S. respond? Over the last year at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, I had pored over dozens of articles in both Chinese and English about the “North Korea Problem.” After I began my Legislative Affairs internship at the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sub-Committee on Asia & Pacific, however, I was no longer merely reading the articles. I was apart of the story.   There is a certain electric feeling on th...

HNC Certificate/Johns Hopkins SAIS MA student, Clarise Brown, shares her experiences now at SAIS in Washington, DC .  Last month, I began my studies at the SAIS D.C. campus, penning the last lines of my chapter in China, and starting anew in Dupont Circle. After living for 4 years in China and studying a year at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, it was delightfully strange to be in D.C. again. It was foreign, familiar and frighteningly exciting all at once. I have to say, over the last month, that feeling has only intensified in the best possible way. Although I loved living in Nanjing, adjusting to the fast-paced life in D.C. has been an incredibly strange and wonderful feeling. A typical day starts with me working in the HNC admissions office in D.C., where I often have first dibs on the tasty Chinese catering for luncheons and events. Speaking of events, during any given week, there are at least a dozen talks on campus by the most renowned in their field. Yesterday, for example, I hap...

Brandon Yeh, HNC Certificate/SAIS MA student currently in DC, competed in the Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge on the Johns Hopkins SAIS team with fellow HNC and SAIS students. The team advanced to the final stage of the competition in Hong Kong. Read on to hear about their proposal and the competition.  For 6 years running, the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and Morgan Stanley have hosted the Sustainable Investing Challenge. The competition seeks to inspire students of business and economics to develop innovative and scalable investment ideas that have positive social and environmental benefits, while also generating real financial returns for investors. The first stage of the competition required teams to submit an investment prospectus that addresses issues of social and environmental impact, while detailing their impact of their idea, the generated cash flow of their project, and the key risks associated with implementing their idea. Thi...