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Friday, July 16, 2004

Good News From Beijing: Graduate Schools, Visas, and Jobs

11:14 PM

School is out; I recently gave my last lecture for the 2003 � 2004 academic year. I am delighted by the prospects of seven weeks without classes and more time to write myself out of the doghouse with an editor or two for whom I�m well behind deadline. But what I am absolutely giddy with joy over is that 19 of my seniors not only received fellowships and scholarships from good universities in America and England, but that everyone of them got VISAS! Yes! I was astounded at our 100 percent success rate.

As most of you know, visas for Chinese students to study in America have been rarer than hen�s teethe since the 9/11 attacks and the paralyzing xenophobia that followed them. Now, I do not have statistics from any other universities�my students at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute were all juniors and will be applying to grad schools abroad in the 2004 � 2005 academic year. I must also add that the China Foreign Affairs University has always had a leg-up on the visa situation since it is directly under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and there is a certain degree of professional courtesy involved with the U.S. State Department. But, still, we did not think we would get all of them approved. (Visas to study in England have never been a problem; the British government has an office staffed here in Beijing to actively recruit and facilitate the application process.)

Of the 19, a bit more than half are going to the United States. The American schools include: University of South Carolina; University of Kentucky; Purdue University; University of Missouri; Notre Dame; University of Wisconsin. In England the schools include: Cambridge; Oxford; Leeds; and Bristol.

The China Foreign Affairs University is a very small school; our graduating class was about 80 strong. Of those not going abroad to study, our usual number of about 25 percent received employment offers directly into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; roughly another 25 percent were accepted into graduate schools in China.

The remaining 20 or so were perhaps the luckiest of all�they received real JOBS. And it is in this aspect that I am both thrilled and vindicated. The single largest sector doing the hiring was media. While I am certainly not alone in this, I have been convinced that the single most promising area of future employment in China will be in media, which in the next several years will virtually explode with positions begging to be filled by qualified students.

Understand, the only media class offered at CFAU was mine, �Media & Foreign Policy,� which was not a �lab� class but rather theory and concept intensive. I teach hands-on media at Beijing Broadcasting Institute where we have fully equipped studios, television, radio, film and theater.

In other words, China Daily, CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, CRI, etc., had enough need that they hired students without specific training or experience. Since I have more direct involvement with the media, I can report that this phenomenon occurred with the graduating classes of the other, much larger universities in Beijing.

Remember the classic scene in the movie, �The Graduate,� when a somewhat drunk family friend corners the just graduated Dustin Hoffman and says: �Plastics!�

Well, I am cold sober�drats!�and I am saying: �Media!�

Much more on this subject to come later.

11:14 PM / Editor / permalink 2 comments

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2 Comments:

Of course the good teaching they had no doubt helped them in finding their jobs or courses. Congrats and it is interesting to hear they all got visas. Perhaps the US has eased its student visa program after all the flak it copped?

By Simon, at 2:14 PM

Simon,

What a wonderfully kind thing to say; I thank you for it even though I must tell you that they were excellent students well before I appeared in their lives.

I hope you are right and that this is a sign that things are going to loosen up a bit for student visas because of the flak over it. Sometimes the "squeaky wheel" theory actually works.

All the best,

Joseph

By Joseph, at 6:44 PM