Greetings. As many of you might have heard about me, my name is Cheng Ye. I am a Russian language major. I am currently working as Dean of Middle School here in BIPH, and this is my fifth year working with BASIS, third year with BIPH.
I always like to say, “I didn’t choose my college major, it was my major that chose me”. Initially, I picked the universities that I was applying to without knowing my actual grades from my examinations. During those days, applying for a university likened to a blind auction because you never knew if you had memorized all the answers accurately and what exactly the grading standards would be. In a sense, it was like gambling with your future.
At the time, Economics was a popular major for many prospective students and it was my first choice. However, I received notice of acceptance into the Russian language program. I initially appealed of switching my major but the admission committee decline my request. I was frustrated at this point of my new college career but I only had two options left in front me, repeat another year or just move forward.
This turned out to be a turning point in my life and I decided to follow my intuition (because the thought of repeating a year drove me crazy!) and finally accept my major. I quickly found out that the Russian language program was one of the best in my university and in the top tier of the country.
“A blessing in disguise.”
Learning a new language is difficult, especially Russian. The Russian language is one of the hardest languages in the world and it has such a small population of people who speak it. Unlike other foreign languages Russian sounded like it would be difficult and hard to learn. French sounds romantic, Italian sounds like singing, Japanese sounds have staccato rhythm, but Russian? Russian sounds so hard…
However, weakness is strength, and I wanted to become strong so I accepted this new challenge in my life. The hardest part of Russian is grammar, with tons of conjugations, case changes, tenses. On the other hand, this is the most interesting and fancy part of learning this language. I had great professors who taught me to learn by manipulating with puzzles. Manipulating language through puzzles is like putting LEGO pieces together helping you to create sentences. Over time, my brain was actively working through these difficult puzzles because it is so easy to make mistakes. However, completing one sentence without making any mistakes made me so excited and gave me great feelings of accomplishment.
I quickly found that learning another language helped develop a second brain to think and give me a different perspective to look at the world around me. I become more open-minded and more acceptable to other people and cultures; this is a lifelong gift that my major gave me.
I have been learning Russian for seven years, and of course, I wanted to find a job where I could use this language. Careers such as translator or international reporter are good options. I was lucky in finding a job working in a Chinese government department as a translator. However, alongside with translation, coordinating and organizing different international events, there is a lot of administrative work. In reality, the administrative aspects of my job took the majority of my time. After a year and a half, I decided to quit; I could not see any growth in both my career and personal development and this is extremely important to me. I progressed from the governmental organization job, landed a position with an NGO. I became a teaching fellow in a two-year teaching program in rural China. I enjoyed the interaction, connections, and relationships that I developed with my students. I still remember our big slogans: TAL “Teaching as Leadership” and “Bring impact to your kids”, which always reminds me about why I chose this career and have stayed in this profession.
If given a chance, yes, I will definitely choose this major again. Learning languages is so fascinating and I developed an appreciation of everything that I received and gained through the whole study process. My major made who I am and I am glad to be me!
If I had to choose a different major, I might choose dance therapy/dance choreography to be my major because I have a dream to be a dancer.
Before making a decision on a major, please try different things and discover where your passion lies. Maybe you will find your interest very quickly or maybe not! That is totally fine, everyone has a different clock and everyone is running their own race in their own time zone. Take your time to figure out what kind of person that you want to be and what kind life that you want to have in the future. Once you have the answer, walk towards to your goal.
Before I left my government office position, a colleague of mine told me one adage, and I will pass this out to you as my best wish for you: “If you chose one major, job, or career, stick with it and work diligently for at least several years. Be patient, you will contribute a lot in this profession and you will bring a huge impact to others”.