Editor's note: Another year and another class of graduating students will say goodbye to their alma mater and start a new journey. The four years spent at UIC is some of the best years of their life. How many stories and sceneries have been treasured along the way? What does college mean to them? The following is the story of 2019 Marketing graduate Zhou Zihan.
Zhou Zihan has been interested in the education industry since high school, and at UIC, he got the opportunities to discover this field, build confidence and has gained a new outlook. He hopes to join in the field of innovative education and to help realise the potential of students via diverse teaching methods.
Zhou Zihan
Since his first year, Zhou Zihan likes to try different things. He was the leader of the newly founded student organisation, UIC Ambassadors. During his sophomore year, he started to participate in commercial competitions, inside and outside the campus. Even during the busy two last years, Zhou Zihan did not stop practising while working on his studies. He founded many education-related studios on campus. Zhou Zihan's bold attempts in diverse fields paid off, as he was awarded xCurrency Curiosity Scholarship during the 2018-2019 academic year.
To better understand the education industry, Zhou Zihan started an internship at Adream Foundation, where he learned that foundations can involve more enterprises in the innovative development of education. After the internship, Zhou Zihan joined the Adream Coach Programme. During the 13-day internship, he participated in the training of the teachers at several schools in Fujian. In a conversation, Zhou Zihan learned that teachers are very looking forward to experimenting with different teaching models to benefit the children.
Zhou Zihan (middle) and the members of the Ambassadors group
This summer, Zhou Zihan has been doing an internship at the 21st Century Education Research Institute, and he is mainly working on the policy advocacy and curriculum optimisation of an all-round education teacher incubation project in the rural area. He is going to study a Master of Science in Education (Leadership and Policy) at the University of Bristol in the UK.
Zhou Zihan considers that he has done a lot during the four years of college thanks to UIC’s practice of Liberal Arts Education and Whole Person Education in and out of the classroom. After graduation, he is going to continue finding his way of self-realisation.
From MPRO
Reporter: Covee Wang
Editor: Samuel Burgess
