Advice from a foreign student
This article came from one of my students at CMU. She wrote it for her friends in China but I think it is also appropriated for many students so I asked her to allow me to share it in my blog.
“After receiving my bachelor’s degree, I worked for an Information Technology (IT) company in Cheng Du, my hometown. As a local company, the primary language is Chinese but occasionally we had visitors whose languages were not Chinese. Since I do know a little English, I was the only person capable of speaking to them.
Although I worked in the IT industry, I always wanted to have an MBA. I often discussed with friends about whether I should go to local school or study abroad. My friends told me that local school was good enough and by study there I do not need to learn another language. Of course, there is no need to learn another language if you are happy with your job and want to stay in Cheng Du. Most people here have no need to learn another language. While it is fine with them, I believe that as technical person, I should know more than one language because it will do more for me on personal level, and on business level as well. After work, I continued to take additional English class with the hope that someday, I may have a chance to study oversea.
Few years ago, during the financial crisis, my company went through a series of problems and eventually was brought by a larger IT company in Beijing. Since the business scope was no longer local, we had to do business in more than one language. Although the official business was still in Chinese, I was able to do more in the new environment because I speak English. As a result, I was promoted to customer service representative since I had a better understanding of English than other developers. One day, our company had a visitor from the U.S. The customer did not speak Chinese (Her translator was sick that day) but need to discuss business with several local firms. As a courtesy, my manager asked me to escort her to other local firms and act as translator. I was able to help her conducted the business successfully. By the end of that week, she signed several contracts with local firms. Of course, it was not easy for me as it took more time than necessary, but knowing both languages helped me to support her on the business. I did not know that she was the owner of a large U.S company. She was so impressed with me and offered me a job with her company. It was difficult to imagine this golden opportunity. Beside better salary, she knew my dream and was willing to put me in an MBA school in the U.S.
The fact that I knew English well separated me from most people in my company. I can say that knowing English made things easier in my work as I advanced from tester to developer than customer service representative in just three years when most of my friends were still working as testers. After several years working in Shanghai for the new company, my boss agreed to pay for my schooling in the U.S. Since she graduated from Carnegie Mellon and knew many people there, I was able to get admission to one of the top school in the U.S.
While at CMU, I met students from all over the world. Most of them had good score on the TOEFL test but did not speak well or understand the lecture well enough. Many professors understood that and often spoke slowly for not to alienate them. However, I know that without adequate command of the language, it would be difficult for foreign students to do well in U.S school. I had several years of English class at Cheng Du, spent three years in an English speaking company but still had difficulty.
Today it is generally accepted that English is the proper language for business. In this globalized world, most business transactions are using English language. There should be no reason for any students in this time to just knowing one language. I do urge all of you to learn a second language. Be it English, Spanish, German, or even Japanese. It definitely will help your career as it helped me. - Sincerely, Yang Ling.”
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
