Ding Yang is an Accounting Programme student who will soon graduate this year. In addition to keeping excellent grades in Accounting, he also took Applied Psychology as a minor for three semesters. Then, last winter, he successfully got an offer from his dream institute, the University of Edinburgh, to study the programme he loves the most, which is Education.

Ding Yang
Ding Yang won the First Class Award during his first year of college and said that UIC's Liberal Arts Education gave him a chance to find his interests and understand himself fully. In the Accounting Programme, he has taken plenty of courses, including marketing and organisational behaviour. He then discovered the subject he took great interest in, psychology.

Ding Yang winning the First Class Award in his first year of college
During his second year, Ding Yang applied for the student tutor at the Personal Growth and Counselling Centre (PGCC). During his teaching and imparting professional knowledge in accounting, Ding Yang also used the teaching methodology and educational psychology theory he studied independently. Later in his third year, he decided to take the minor programme in Applied Psychology.


Ding Yang at the PGCC tutorial
During the classes, Ding Yang also shared many of his precious learning experience with other students and helped them find their interests and learning pathways. As a result, some students are even determined to engage in education in the future under his influence.

Ding Yang with teachers in UIC
It is always a hard nut to keep excellent grades in major and minor programmes, but Ding Yang made it. He concluded that the two primary learning methods that helped him were reviewing and previewing promptly as well as studying a subject that interested him.
The learning habits of doing preview and review and paying full attention in class enable Ding Yang to do well even in the face of heavy college work. Moreover, before taking the minor courses, he had spent his spare time studying plenty of psychology textbooks, generating many unique personal ideas for the subject.
In the coming year, Ding Yang will study in the Moray House School of Education and Sport of the University of Edinburgh (Child and Adolescent Psychology pathway), hoping to learn more about psychology and behavioural science from the perspective of cognitive science and neuroscience.
Ding Yang plans to return to China and devote himself to education after postgraduate study, hoping to use what he has learned to contribute to China's education.
From MPRO
Reporter: Xia Meng
Editors: Samuel Burgess, Deen He, Covee Wang