01 Why choose Economies As My Major?
My parents were businessmen, and I was born sensitive to and interested in business. Plus, I’m outgoing, curious about everything, and I like to meet people in different fields. In my opinion, a wide range of knowledge, good interpersonal skills, and the ability to see and listen to all directions are the core requirements for becoming a mature business person, and this is why I chose to study at DKU.
In freshman year, I explored a lot of different Majors through DKU’s liberal arts courses. Each class has a unique perspective, and I enjoy the process of reasoning and solving difficult problems, but after all, I think that the broad and practical Major:Economy, is the most suitable to lay the foundation for business school in the future. I believe that this interdisciplinary discipline, which integrates economic principles, international political and cultural systems and data science knowledge, will equip me with critical thinking and solid skills to understand and adapt to the ever-changing business world.
02 Plans After Graduation?
I plan to pursue a master’s degree in Enterprise Risk Management at Columbia University. The demand for talents in enterprise risk management is increasing year by year. This major also combines knowledge related to finance and mathematics, which can broaden my learning ideas and expand my future career direction.
03 Rich Internship Experience
In the second semester of my freshman year, I attended the first Career Fair held by the Career Development. At the job fair, I spotted an internship at Mindshare, an advertising agency owned by WPP, to see how my outgoing, challengeable personality would fit in with the fast-paced, creative-focused marketing work. During the internship, I worked in two departments respectively. One was the marketing strategy planning team, which was responsible for analyzing data such as advertisement views and transaction volume of brand customers and output feasible marketing plans; The other is the marketing execution group, mainly to help customers implement marketing plans and do advertising accounting. This internship gave me a place to use my imagination, and also gave me a comprehensive understanding of marketing channels, and saw how consumer psychology and behavior habits affect their consumption preferences.
In the second semester of my junior year, I was recommended by my classmates to have a summer internship in the consulting department of PWC. This internship gave me a comprehensive understanding of the work content and environment of management consulting. My leader was very kind and trusted me, allowing me to directly participate in the project for data collection and data analysis. The consulting work helped me to improve the skills necessary for professionals such as summary and special presentation in a short period of time, and my business sensitivity was also improved by contacting clients in different industries.
In the last semester of my senior year, in order to further enrich my experience, I started to do some marketing plans from scratch in the Creative Technology company founded by my senior at Duke, from which I learned how to better market a brand or IP in a more comprehensive way and trained my creative output ability. Recently, I also got a summer internship Offer from the investment department of Haitong Securities, responsible for helping clients go public, which will be a new experience different from the past. In my opinion, internship is a very valuable opportunity, I should try as much as possible, experience different working environments and contents, so as to identify my real interest direction, and take the initiative to get to know outstanding seniors in the industry.
04 Well-harvested Leadership Practice
In my junior year, I joined the Campus Activities Board (CAB) and served as the director of culture and art. CAB team needs to plan and organize interesting and meaningful campus activities on a regular basis to enrich the life of students and staff outside of work. Impressed with the planning of the Halloween event, we wanted to play with a bit of innovative form at that time and decided to arrange a haunted house to liven up the holiday atmosphere.
The school provided us with a sufficient budget to buy various props, and we also contacted professional suppliers to help us plan the site, and finally designed a haunted house with two small classrooms connected together. From planning to execution, we revised three or four different versions of the plan, and each team member paid enough mental and physical energy. Fortunately, on Halloween, the haunted house was liked by many students, and the haunted house was originally planned to be open for only 3 hours and finally extended to 5 hours.
In my opinion, for a team to be well-coordinated and productive, everyone in the team needs to have initiative, dare to express their own opinions, and be willing to take responsibility for their own work. A good leader knows how to create a collaborative atmosphere of trust and support among team members. As a team, we can bring out the best in others and in ourselves. As a team, we can discover and combine the best in ourselves and others to create value.
05 Why Love DKU?
I always think that in addition to learning knowledge, the more important thing is to help us understand ourselves and learn to get along with others. DKU provides many valuable academic and practical opportunities, and also gathers many outstanding talents. Through these opportunities, I have not only clarified my interests and future goals, but also been inspired by many classmates and teachers, learned about the cultures of different countries and regions, and accumulated very valuable cross-cultural experience and contacts.
For example, Professor Li Xin, whom I met in my freshman year because of an interdisciplinary research project, always encouraged me to study more when I was still a little white. Later, while promoting his graduate program, he invited several of us to eat hairy crabs together. I have kept in touch with Professor Li Xin all the time. In my junior year, I consulted him out of my interest in digital marketing. He also shared with me a lot of opinions about the industry, future study choices and employment.
For another example, in the second semester of my junior year, I joined my friend’s startup project supported by the Innovation Incubator of our university, operating a career development platform as a marketing partner. It is precisely because of this entrepreneurial project that I got to know many excellent students in my grade and got the summer internship opportunity of PWC under their recommendation.
Many times, fate and opportunity are connected with each other, as long as we are sincere with an open mind and contribute our own value to the common goal, more surprises will come to us. I am very grateful to have found like-minded partners at DKU, and I look forward to our meeting again at some point in the future to empower each other.
06 Suggestions To Fellow Students
In the increasingly internal environment, it is inevitable to be anxious, and even have ambitious and opportunistic ideas. But we have to learn to balance the inner impetuous, cut off the noise of the outside world, and step on the ground toward the goal.
Life is too short to do boring things. Life is too short to be boring. Don’t be shackled by tradition, don’t take the world as the right solution, and strive to break out of your own small world.
Translated and Edited by Zhenyu Tian, Class of 2027
