Lin Yan

University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia
Exchange to Fujian Normal University, China

My name is Yan Lin. I am a junior of Concord University College, Fujian Normal University. I studied at University of Sunshine Coast in semester 2, 2005 under the Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship Programme.

The experience of studying at USC changed my life completely.

First of all, my spoken English improved a great deal in that period of time. There were not so many Chinese students at USC, so I was able to use English all the time to communicate with people.

Secondly, I acquainted myself with the Australian teaching style, which is very different from Chinese style. In my opinion, the Australian style is better because it allows students to have more opportunities to participate in various activities in classes so that students are able to really grasp the knowledge and practice the knowledge in real life. For instance, COR 109-Communication and Thoughts taught me the knowledge about writing essays and reports as well as making presentations and debating. The knowledge is very beneficial to me as a student now and as a worker in the future.

Since I grasped the essentials of essay-writing and presentation, it would be easier for me whenever I need to write an essay or make a presentation. I really enjoyed the lectures and tutorials of this course. The lecturers taught us the knowledge in a way that could be easily understood. When a lecturer explained the outline of an essay, he used an example of going to a theme park to illustrate that. He said: “The introduction of an essay is the map you get when you first enter the theme park which tells you where to go, the main body is the activities you enjoy in the park and the conclusion is the whole experience that you tell your families and friends afterwards.” What I like the tutorials most was the chances to participate in various activities, like the debate.

I and other three Australian girls formed a debate group that held ‘Tobacco should be outlawed in Australia’. Each of us collected information of one negative influence of smoking on health. We met once a week to analyze the information we collected, to write speeches and to rehearse. My team won the debate and personally, I got a DN for the debate. Without the cooperation of the team members, my team would not have won and I would not have had such a good result. My final result of this course was DN. CMN 100-Critical Reasoning taught me what makes a sound argument and how to analyze arguments.

The knowledge was also helpful because I would pay attention to my own arguments when writing essays and making presentations. This course involved logics a lot which I am really good at. I got a HD for this course. CMN213-Editing for Communications Professional was the most difficult course for me since English is not my native language. But it did improve my English writing skill. With the editing knowledge I learnt, my spelling and grammatical mistakes became less and less. And it was fun to design my own newspaper. I was really happy to get a CR for this course.

Moreover, the studying style of USC made me become more responsible and more organized. Now, my Chinese teachers are happy to find that I show more initiative in study and become more active in the classes.

At USC, I met students from all over the world. This gave me great opportunities to learn cultures of different countries. I made a lot of close friends there. My friends made my life full of fun. More importantly, my friends had changed me a lot. I became more open and outgoing.

Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Scholarship Programme gave me this opportunity of studying at USC, which helped me gain access to a world I did not know, to a world which otherwise would be unattainable. I really appreciate this opportunity! I hope there will be more and more students who will be able to study abroad under this programme.

Thank you very much for setting up this programme and providing students like me a chance to experience the outside world.

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