Hopkins-Nanjing Center Blog

As an international education and educational diplomacy professional, Stephanie Tao, Certificate '13,  currently serves as a  high school counselor at the International School Manila in the Philippines.   How did you become interested in China and end up at the HNC?   I moved to China after my undergraduate studies in anthropology because of inspiration from a course I took on urban ethnography. In this course, I read a study on the rapid urbanization of Beijing and what it was doing to the preservation of hutongs and the sociocultural communities that came with them. I wanted to see for myself how quickly urban Chinese cities were growing and the impact it had on sociocultural practices.   When I applied to the HNC, I was living in Wuhan, China working at the China-Canada Student Exchange Center at Wuhan University. This was my initial exposure to the field of higher education, and it gave me insight to educational diplomacy created between two countr...

Alexandra Hansen, Certificate ’18, is an Expedition/Polar Guide, International Studies Lecturer, and Naturalist with Silversea Cruises aboard small expedition ships spanning all seven continents. What led you to your current job?  A bizarre set of circumstances! At the beginning of my second semester at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, I reached out to my network for job leads. One afternoon, a previous supervisor sent me an email of a poster. The poster had pictures of tropical reefs, king penguins, and snow-capped mountains. But, most prominently, it had a picture of a guide driving a zodiac (a small rubber inflatable boat) with an arrow that said, “This Could Be You.” The poster explained that the company was hosting an intensive training program aboard one of their expedition ships. The program was to train individuals to work and guide in some of the most remote destinations on the planet. They were particularly looking for mandarin speakers, anthropologists, and biologists. I was ...