Today is the first day of orientation, all classmates and professors join together in Anheuser Busch Hall. An introduction to this university and more important, to this law school, was made by the Dean Syvrud. And then Ms. Greenhaw and Mr. Koby briefed us about the coming course Intro to US Law & Methods. Dean Keeting, Ellis and Glumsky gave us precious advices on how to select courses, like JD’s first year course or upper-level course etc.
The Dean of LLM program, Dr. Shoresman and all the other professors of Washington University law school are really trying to speak English as simple as we international students can understand. I highly appreciate their effort, mention that Ms. Sarah, who explained all the email from the entire LLM class of 2010, without this lady, I can have a chance to be in Wash U.
I found it’s still some kind of cannot follow the native English speaker, especially conversations between natives. Ms. Greenhaw kindly told us that it’s ok, and told everybody not to be shy, speak a lot, write the assignment on the time and hand it in. It will take a month to get use to native speaking English. Mr. Koby added that do not forget to join workshop specially with US students in the courses. These advices seem useful, and I gonna try them all later, let’s see.
Also, I make some new friends, Pong from Thailand, who is interested in Chinese culture. He knows the historical character like Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan. This guy is funny. Dr. Luo Wei, the lecturer from Quanzhou, China, JD&MLIS, will meet the class tomorrow. I am looking forward to his research lab.
Though all things are fresh and funny, now I have to deal with the case reading assignment for tomorrow. Yep, keep reading cases and cases, the Dean said we'd better quit Facebook and Twitter. That's OK. Haha, except for these books which I cannot running from, life on this campus would be a joyful time for me, I believe.
Cool post. Keep us posted!
Nice post though, we need more pictures, man!
- -|||| I am not freshman, cause this is a 1 year program. Got no bluetooth and DC...
Dude, let me remove that tag ... haha
yeah....I will try to find a bluetooth adaptor for my laptop...
well...probably I should purchase a new one...
Cool post.Useful infarmation.
the listening comprehension would be always a problem to our Chinese people, as we can't listen more.. You would get it after more staying there.
I got a lot of information, thanks
I doubt that I did write with poor English..
:-(
OK Cool post.Useful infarmation.
Hello,
I have just found this blog and I really like it. It's very interesting about your experiences in a foreign university, as they were similar to my experiences when I was studying in China. Of course it will be hard initially to follow native English speakers, we often find that we speak very hard. The important thing is to try and talk with as many non-Chinese people as possible and that way you'll make great improvements. You seem to definitely be going down the right route as you really want to practise English, keep up the good work!
I have noticed that in Leeds that obviously some of the Chinese students make much more progress with their English than others. Those guys who hung around mainly with Chinese people found it a lot harder understanding when we were speaking English with each other, but there were some students who in a short space of time really improved their comprehension and speaking skills. As with any language, it's about finding lots of opportunities to get input from as many different sources(people speaking, people with different accents speaking, reading, watching television,getting involved in something you like doing in that language) as possible.
You are very great
Thanks Vincent for writing this story. It would be very hard to convert from Chinese to English and study Law. Law is so serious.
Please keep up posted on how you go.
Hi Vincent. I graduated from Wash U business school (undergrad) in 1992 and lived in China (Shanghai) from two years, from 2004-06, teaching English at Shanghai Dianji University - so I am familiar with (and extremely interested in) Chinese culture as well as Wash U culture! I live in Chicago now, but if you want someone to talk to about your cross cultural experiences, shoot me an email. Best of luck! Rebecca