Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

Li Shuo HNC students learn about global issues from their peers’ perspectives by living, eating, and studying together while working in their target language, meaning that Chinese students take courses primarily in English, while international students take most of their courses in Chinese. Many of these students immediately impact their communities, like Li Shuo HNC’10, who joined Greenpeace after leaving the HNC and in 2013 led an unprecedented environmental investigation of one of the largest Chinese coal producers and politically powerful state-owned enterprises, Shenhua Group . Asked about the HNC’s impact on him, Li says, “Many of the key skills and knowledge required in my daily work now find their roots in the HNC. This could not be encapsulated anywhere better than in the HNC’s library and its role in developing my fascination with books - even after three decades of reform and opening up, the HNC's library still is one of the few places in Mainland China that host...

The Hopkins-Nanjing Center recently held its annual Career Day in Shanghai. Read on for student Nanfei Yan's impressions of the day! Hello All, Last Friday was the annual HNC Career Day, undoubtedly one of the most exciting events at the Center. Career Day starts off with a keynote speaker luncheon, followed by a dozen panels covering a dozen industries, ending with a dinner reception for all the participants.  Career Day Luncheon This year’s keynote speaker was a managing director from Deloitte China. He spoke on the qualities of leadership and quoted past leaders from both China and the US. Afterwards, students were given a chance to ask questions. When asked about lessons learned from past challenges, the speaker shared a memory from working with multinational clients and having to recognize the importance of cross-cultural communication.  Keynote Speech at Career Day For the panels, students were given a choice of 3 from a list of industries including consul...

Students recently had the opportunity to participate in an HNC-sponsored Saturday outing to Gaochun, where they were able to pick strawberries, enjoy lunch with their classmates, and take a study break.  Check out some of the pictures from the outing below!

Most of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center student body is in Shanghai today for our annual Career Day.  We hope to feature pictures from Career Day in a future post, but in the meantime we have taken a look back on another opportunity offered through HNC's career services office: the Asia Career Trek.  Current HNC Certificate/SAIS MA student Dennis Hong reflects on the five day trek to Shanghai and Hong Kong: Upon the conclusion of the first semester at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in January, I had a chance to participate in its annual Asia Career Trek, one of the most informative and educational career development oppor tunities available at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center. Annually organized by Johns Hopkins University SAIS and HNC, the 2015 Asia Career Trek brought 20 students from all three locations of SAIS - Washington DC, Europe (Bologna), and Nanjing - to Shanghai and Hong Kong for the five-day meetings with representatives of various organizations. During my visit to these...

We often focus here on this blog on the "target language" experience students receive in the classroom, but the HNC is truly a bilingual community and student life is a perfect example of that unique aspect of our program.  Several student initiatives demonstrate this, including a public speaking group focused on practicing public speaking skills in both native and target languages, as well as a Chinese-English movie interest group that screens two movies per week.  Check out the pictures below from some of these activities!  Buttons indicate which language to speak in when practicing public speaking skills One English and one Chinese movie are screened each week in the student lounge    Chinese and international students also work together to run a weekday coffee counter in the student lounge Buy 10 cups of coffee in the student lounge and get one free!

An e-newsletter was sent to all admitted students yesterday, but we've heard from few of you with Gmail accounts that it has been filtered into Gmail's "promotions" folder.  If you have not yet received this newsletter, please check that folder.  Once you open the email, you can click on the tags/labels icon and uncheck the promotions box so hopefully future emails are filtered into your main inbox.  The joys of Gmail... Every Monday from now until the decision deadline of April 20, we will be sending an e-newsletter with information on preparing for graduate school and making the decision whether to attend the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.  Each issue will feature topics ranging from academics to career services to student life.  If you have any questions, please contact us at nanjing@jhu.edu.

Over the spring festival break last month, several HNC students participated in the Chinese National Round of the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition.  Read on below for student Nanfei Yan's description of the experience: Hello All, Members of the HNC Jessup Team Starting October of last year, the HNC Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition team had been hard at work, preparing for the Chinese Qualifying Rounds. The competition was held at Renmin University in Beijing, from February 3rd to the 6th. Our team placed 6th out of the 42 participating schools. Two of our members, Forrest Cranmer and Eliot Kim, received the Best Oralist award. On behalf of the school, I extend our congratulations to a group of talented and hard-working mooters. What was the competition like? First, we arrived at our hotel in the Haidian District of Beijing a few days early in order to get back into the law mindset and prepare for the oral rounds. During the day, we held p...

HNC admissions decisions are being sent via email this morning.  We thank all applicants for their interest in the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and send our congratulations to those who have been admitted.  For those who applied for financial aid, you will receive a separate email from the SAIS Office of Financial Aid within 24 hours outlining your award.  We look forward to welcoming admitted students to the HNC family!

The HNC admissions office has been closed the last two days due to snowy conditions in Washington, but our students in Nanjing have been busy with the first week of the spring semester. HNC student Nanfei Yan reflects on last semester and looks ahead to the spring: Hello All, Long time no see! As some of you may know, the HNC has just returned from a long winter break following the fall semester. First of all, Happy New Year - the Year of the Sheep! 天天开心“喜羊羊”，事事如意“美羊羊”。This post talks about some of the highlights from the past semester, as well as what some of our students did over the winter break. As the first semester for the Certificate and 1st year MAIS students, the fall semester was an Student-Teacher Ping Pong Tournament Semi-Finalists introduction to an immersion of US-China language, culture, and lifestyle. One example of this would be the student-teacher ping pong tournament held during the Christmas season. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese students showc...