CameronI was born and raised in Chengdu, Sichuan. In 2005, I went to U.S. and started high school in southern California. However, given my limited English language proficiency, I had quite some struggles to adapt the new learning and living environment there.
I wonāt ever forget how lost I was during the first a few months in high school. Being the āparachuteā new immigrant I was, listening to teachersā lectures and classmatesā chats, I heard their voices but I couldnāt understand what they were saying. I was such an outsider; physically sitting in class, I was only inches away from classmates but I felt we were living in different worlds. I remember the only English I understood was āTake out your textbook and turn to page 3ā¦ā Didnāt catch the page number, I would peek at people near me, glancing the textbook in front of them and hoping that there would be an obvious map, graph, or chart on that page so I could find that particular page faster, manually made myself to ākeep on the same pageā as other students.
I also remember my guidance counselor, Ms. Patel, an extremely nice lady who I genuinely felt that she cared about me. However, each time we ran into other in hallway, when she greeted me with warm smiles and asked if I needed help, I was shouting in my heart that I wanted a translator who could interpret every English sentence I heard yet I could only pull the muscles on my face and try to reply with a smile. I knew a translator wouldnāt solve my problem, I had to learn English myself.
The hardship lasted for nearly a year as learning English wasnāt that easy or fast, but overall, before I spoke English fluently, I learned to get used to anxiety, anger, and frustration and deal with it. Now that I see a new student being upset in an international school because of English level, Iād always recall my own story and I want to share it with them; I want to be the kind of counselor like Ms. Patel.
In states, I completed high school and college education, then briefly worked there for two years. A decade later since I left my hometown Chengdu, I came back and started working as an education consultant. Been enabled to perceive college application preparation from different perspectives as Iāve worked in both private education consulting firm and international school, I understand college application as connecting dots to build the image of an applicant. To achieve this goal, the student and I work collaboratively to thoroughly go over their background, extract their highlights, analyze their characteristics and eventually piece the information together to form more than an applicant but an authentic individual of reflection and insight.
Twenty years ago, I was a graphic novel fanatic, all I ever thought of at the time was being a graphic novel story writer and editor. Twenty years later, I ended up being a college counselor; though the roles may sound quite different from one and the other, the duty is common, that is to create strong and impressive characters to be liked and favored.