8/3/05

China Update #1 (Prologue)  from Darrol Butler

 Hello Family, Friends, Fellow Students, and Professors:

 I will be leaving to China on August 15th.  I have so many things I still need to complete, but only 12 days to do it all.  While I like being busy, I definitely became stressed out too much this year.  Fortunately, however, my hard work will soon payoff.  I managed to win 3 scholarships worth a total of $12,000 to help cover my costs of studying in China for a year.  It is not enough, but it will help me from going too much in debt (I mean, too much more in debt!)

Anyway, I am looking forward to finishing the endless tasks that are required before I can leave to China for one year.  Surely, though my current stress level is high, as my list grows shorter I can finally begin to feel some relief and the building excitement inside me.  I do not know if you are aware, but during the previous summer both Shad (my identical twin brother) and I volunteered to teach conversational English in Beijing China for three months.  Well, after that exciting and intellectually stimulating summer, I decided that upon my return to CSU Chico I would try to study abroad in China for one year.  Since I am double majoring in Geography and Asian Studies, I thought that this plan would fit very well with my goals.  In addition I have already taken numerous classes related to China's history, culture, and politics.  Furthermore, I cannot emphasize enough how important China is to the global economy, and therefore to the world as a whole.  However, studying abroad in any country (even a developing country like China) for a year is not an easy task for a person without serious finances.  However, anyone who is determined to achieve their goals can succeed at studying abroad if they are willing to try a little harder by putting in the effort to search for and then apply to scholarships.  It is possible for ANYONE to study abroad if they are willing to make this commitment.  As you will see, I am a perfect example of a person without accumulated self finances who is now going to achieve a goal of studying abroad.

So, I applied for three scholarships for studying abroad and, amazingly, I won all three of them.  I applied for the Wang Family Scholarship which is a $4000 award offered to each of ten people who will study in China or Taiwan for a year through the CSU International Programs (IP).  Even though it was a CSU-wide award I was lucky enough to be one of the ten recipients of the $4000.  I also applied to the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship.  In conjunction with the Institute of International Education the State Department offers the $5000 scholarship to U.S . citizens who will study in Asia for the upcoming school year.  After writing a four page personal statement, and a three page project proposal (like a grant) of what I would do to promote study abroad and the Benjamin A. Gilman scholarship upon my return to the U.S., I was chosen from among the 1303 applicants to be one of the 281 recipients of the $5000 scholarship.  In addition, I also applied to the CSU Chico Asian Studies Award for students at CSU Chico who will study in Asia during the next academic year.  After submitting a personal statement to them and going through an interview, I was selected as the sole recipient of that $3000 award.  I am very thankful for the gracious generosity of these scholarship donors.  Without their support, I would be unable to achieve my dream of studying abroad.  Thank you. 

As you may know, because of my background, there was no way I could have entertained the idea of studying in China for one year without winning these scholarships.  I feel very fortunate to have won them.  In the customized personal statements for all of those scholarships, I believe that my experience of living in Japan for a year, along with later becoming the President of the Intercultural Club at Shasta College, helped to swing the scholarship committees my way.  In addition, because I grew up on welfare, government food handouts, and not having running water (yes we used an outhouse for all of my childhood), and yet I had managed to accomplish going to Japan, being involved extacurricularly at school, and then later volunteering to teach conversational English in Beijing, I think the committees saw that there awards would be well spent on me.  (Note to those of you reading this: yes, it is VERY IMPORTANT to write individual personal statements for each scholarship.  This is what sets you apart from the other applicants, and makes the donors feel that you are writing to them.  Don't worry, it is not as hard as you may think since your personal background does not change each time you write a new personal statement.  Instead, you need to customize each statement to fit the requirements of each scholarship, including relevant information related to that scholarship's purpose.)

Furthermore, as it turns out, I have been notified that I am the first student at CSU Chico who will study at Beijing University via the CSU International Programs.  And, I was also informed by our study abroad coordinator (Tasha Dev) that I am the first CSU Chico student to be a recipient of the State Department's Benjamin A. Gilman scholarship.  Even though financial aid has now decided to cut off the majority of my aid due to my "newfound finances," I think I will have just enough money to get by in China for one year without going into too much debt.

Anyway, I am very lucky, coming from my background, to have the opportunity to study at Beijing University.   Beijing University, known commonly as Beida, is the most famous university in China.  It is like the Harvard of China, and accordingly, it is where all of their top government officials come from.  Beijing University also has the largest university library in Asia.  In fact, there are three top universities in China that fluctuate between being number one, but consistently people say Beijing is the best, and it is definitely the most famous.

Well, it has been a very busy and stressful semester since in addition to all of the study abroad paperwork, and writing essays and going to interviews for the scholarships I applied to, I was also taking 15 units and making up an incomplete,  but all of the hard work has finally paid off for me, and I managed to get straight "A"s in my classes as well.  My Chinese language class was very demanding because there is not enough budget, or interest, to justify hiring a Chinese language professor.  So, the class was a self instructional language program.  In other words, the students bought the text book and audio tapes and then studied as much as possible for the final exam which was worth 90% of our grade!  We did meet for class twice a week with a Chinese graduate student which helped.  However, the student teacher is not required to have training in teaching language.  Anyway, it was helpful to have a native speaker to practice with, and it also gave me another reason to keep up with my lessons.  Needless to say, without guidance, or proper language learning techniques, or even a professor telling us what we should be studying or showing us techniques to write Chinese characters, it was very difficult.  Indeed, I ended up committing myself to 20-25 hours a week studying Chinese.  It was a rare evening indeed when I left the university before 11:00pm.  Yes, that included many weekends as well.  Anyway, thankfully the semester is finished.

I am now trying to finish the various paperwork and tasks, including those I have committed myself to for the three scholarships, that I need to do before I head off to China.  Only two weeks left!

Okay, I am done writing this book.  I hope you have enjoyed the update.

Darrol Butler
dbutler1@mail.csuchico.edu

hairyleprechaun@gmail.com