July 17, 2012, by MinYoung You

Korea->USA->CHINA: How my life started in China

My name’s MinYoung You. I am a third year student at The University of Nottingham Ningbo China, majoring in International Business with Chinese. As you can see from the picture, I am Asian. To be exact, I am from South Korea. I grew up in Seoul and when I was 16 I travelled to America by myself to explore the bigger world. Now I’m 22 and loving this adventurous life in China!

My story starts in the fall of 2006. Everything was challenging when I first went to America: language, culture, people and school. Fortunately, I could see myself in much better place after studying there for a couple of years. After my fourth year in the U.S., my family and I decided that it was maybe time for a gap year. Studying abroad was a huge blessing; however, I was missing out too much on family time. Also considering that I wanted to pursue a career in International Business, it seemed that learning about more than just America was crucial. So I packed my stuff after the first year of university and flew back home.

 It was a good decision and that’s how my story with China started. I took a year off and started to work for a small sized company located in Bucheon, South Korea. I learned a lot about international trade, marketing, management, and how business actually works in the field. As I was working, I had to decide what I want to do with my life and which direction I wanted to go from there. I could literally go to any to country to continue my education. I started to web-search.

I was planning to learn a third language so that was another important factor in choosing a university. I started with Japan since they have many big players in the business world. However, I saw the importance of China as I was talking to more people and getting more information. But how will I jump into a Chinese university when I don’t speak a bit of Chinese? I looked for different options and four years of an undergrad program was about to take six years for me. So the plan had to change a little bit. How about an English university in China? That way, I could keep up with English while I’m learning about China. That’s how I found University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC).

I transferred to UNNC as a 2nd year student since the school accepted credits from my first year at my American university. I completed my first year in China last May, and I am currently in Hong Kong for an internship with UNNC and partner universities. I was extremely blessed to find this school and the opportunity to study here. I’ll keep sharing my stories in China through this blog and hope it can give a better picture for those of who are planning to come here and who are looking for a life changing experience.

Live fully,

MinYoung

 

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