April 13, 2017, by International students

My two years with The University of Nottingham, UK

Yunfei Cheng, from China, is a final year student in BA International Media and Communications Studies.

Formal dinner with my block mates in March

I was originally enrolled in The University of Nottingham Ningbo China studying International Communications and after two years’ study, I got the one-year exchange opportunity to UK campus in 2015. Then I decided to transfer to here as I enjoyed studying and life in Nottingham a lot.

As a culture and language student, I like meeting people of different cultural backgrounds. The university is a charming “melting pot” of diverse cultures. My block mates literally come from all over the world and we have different mother tongues. Because I’m also learning French, I can always ask my French-native-speaker block mate for help. It has been a wonderful experience for me to speak three languages every day.

Speaking of my academic studies, I’ve enjoyed every conversation I had with my knowledgeable and friendly professors. Personally, I find my courses are quite different from most subjects like Law, Economy or Engineering because there’s never a right or wrong answer and we are encouraged to have different point of view in the class.

Travel in London

One of the most valuable skills I’ve learned from my courses is to construct my own opinion and to express it to others accurately either in writing or oral form. Moreover, I find my lifestyle has been changing as I’m adapting myself to the life here. For example, I hardly went to workout before but now I go to the gym almost every day. As for the extracurricular activities, the university provides us with various career events and has different societies. Many career events give us great opportunities to have direct conversations with employees and people who are working in the fields.

I’m also currently doing a work placement in the marketing and communications team in the International Office at The University of Nottingham. My work predominantly focuses on market research, translating and creating tailored content for university’s WeChat official account.

Work in the International Office

Despite some difficulties in my work placement, I do enjoy working in the International Office. First of all, It is a good opportunity for me to use my experiences and apply my academic knowledge to a more professional and practical area. Take language use for instance: I read numerous articles and WeChat posts everyday, especially those which are closely related to today’s young Chinese culture. Therefore, I  would say that I’m familiar with their ways of using language. Moreover, I always look forward to opportunities where I can practice my writing and create content for a social platform. My work placement has improved my writing skill significantly, which is very different from the academic writing style. More important, it gives me a chance to broaden my horizon in marketing and familiarise myself with many relevant terms and concepts. Lastly, I also made a lot of friends here and enjoyed working with the team.

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