Job Hunting at PennGSE

There are many prospective students were asking me about the job prospects after graduation and also the internship during the study. Therefore, I feel it maybe necessary to write a blog about job hunting issues so that you may have a clearer picture about what kind of help you can get from PennGSE for your job hunting.
It's mostly not so hard to find an unpaid internship. Even though the jobs are unpaid, the working experiences are really valuable for both your study and your future job hunting. And for jobs after graduation, it's more difficult but the approaches and resources that might be useful to you are the same.
There are various ways that you can search for potential internships/jobs. GSE has a contact person for career services who's specifically responsible for students from GSE--Jim Alton. He's a really nice and helpful person, who's enthusiastic in helping you to find resources that might help. Always ask help from the career services because they have more resources and information than you do, and they can also provide help on your resume/CV or cover letter. Apart from Jim, you can also ask help from previous students who has graduated or who's in higher grade than you. They have gone through the experience that you are going through right now so they must have a lot to share, not only the experiences but also some possible resources that you can make use of. Some of them can even recommend you to their previous employers directly and it will save you a lot of time and efforts to search for jobs. Besides, advisers, who's assigned to you by GSE, can be really helpful. You can schedule a meeting with your adviser and talk about your concerns and difficulties. And again, as they are more experienced in this than you, they may be able to provide you with a lot of information and suggestions. For example, my adviser referred me to an internship at a small consulting firm, and through interviews, I finally got the job and so far I have learned a lot from the experiences and I really appreciate her help in it. Last, but not least, use all the possible networks that you have here, and ask them for help. You really need to be proactive in job hunting because jobs won't come you, you have to go to them! By possible networks, i mean professors, friends, classmates, relatives, etc.
Many people were asking me about how hard it is for an international students to find jobs in U.S. To be honest, it's not as easy as in China but as long as you make efforts, the results will be satisfactory. I also have some suggestions for international students who wants to work in the U.S. in the future. First of all, think clearly about what you want to do in the future. There are definitely many options available, but try to figure out which one you like and which one might like you as well. It means you have to find out a job that's suitable for your background and you feel passionate about it too. After determining what you want to do in the future, try to accumulate internship experiences in the related industries, especially internships in U.S. One way that your future employer is going to use to evaluate you is your past experience and your academic backgrounds. Working experience is important in job hunting. The third tip is to utilize the school career center. Penn has a very good website PennLink for career services, you can find job listings, trainings and workshops for interviews, personalized services in job hunting, etc. So don't forget to make the full use of the website. The reality is that when international students want to find jobs in U.S., visa is always an issue. Bear in mind that you have to be really outstanding to compete with other competitors and to get the jobs. There were many successful examples so don't worry about the feasibility.

Chinese New Year!!

Even though I have to say it's the loneliest Chinese New Year I have ever had in my life, I still want to write something on the Chinese New year, after all it's the most important and traditional holiday in China.

"Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is known as "Spring Festival," the literal translation of the Chinese name 春節 (Pinyin: Chūn Jié), since the spring season in Chinese calendar starts with lichun, the first solar term in a Chinese calendar year. It marks the end of the winter season, analogous to the Western carnival. The festival begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: Zhēng Yuè) in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve, a day where Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, is known as Chú Xī (除夕) or "Eve of the Passing Year." Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the "Lunar New Year".

 

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is to reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone. " (From Wikipedia)

"

The Shēngxiào (Chinese: 生肖), better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year mathematical cycle. It has wide currency in several East Asian countries such as Korea and Japan.

Identifying this scheme using the term "zodiac" reflects several similarities to the Western zodiac: both have time cycles divided into 12 parts, each labels at least the majority of those parts with names of animals, and each is widely associated with a culture of attributing influence of a person's relationship to the cycle upon their personality and/or events in their life. Nevertheless, there are major differences: the "Chinese" 12-part cycle is divided into years rather than months; contrary to the association with animals implied in the Greek etymology of "zodiac", actually four of the Western "signs" or "houses" are represented by humans (one such sign being the twins "Gemini") and one is the inanimate balance scale "Libra"; the animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations, let alone those spanned by the ecliptic plane."

This year is a dragon year, and it's exactly the same to the year I was born. So it's called my year because my Shengxiao is dragon too!

Every year I would go to my grandparents' place and celebrate the new year with the whole family. We would have a big dinner and watch the program from CCTV, the ceremony for Chinese New Year together. At around midnight, we will have fireworks and firecrackers.

 But this year, since the school has already started, so I cannot go back to China to celebrate the festival with my family. It's a little bit sad to me because it's the first year that I didn't spend Chinese New Year with my family. Also, Spring Festival is a tradition to me for the past 23 years, it's hard to forget the way I used to celebrate.So all I can do is to wish all my family and friends a Happy Dragon Year!

Winter Vacation rocks!

Since it's just the beginning of the semester and i have just came back to school, so I think it might be a good idea to talk about what I did during the winter break.
I didn't go back to China during the break, on one hand it's because I've only been here for around 4 months i don't feel necessary to go back that soon, on the other hand is because I wanna see how Americans celebrate Christmas and new year. So, I stayed in U.S. for my winter break and I had a great time.
I spend my first few days in New York to see how Christmas is going to rock this big city. I watched a broad way show Phantom of the Opera, one of my favorites, and it was awesome, I also went to several traveling spots like the empire state building and the statue of liberty to see the symbols of New York. On Christmas Eve, I walked along the avenue to Times Square and the view on the street is amazing.

The LED screens have lighten the night and crowds of people are on the street celebrating the holiday together.Several shops are open 24 hours during Christmas and their decorations are pretty and funny.

After the new year, I went to Western coast of U.S. with several friends and I really had a great great time there.
My first stop is Las Vegas, where I really enjoyed a lot.
Las Vegas is a very energetic and modern city, and it's similar to New York in some points, and it never sleeps as well. The lights are on for all night and you cannot feel how late it is when you are on the street of Las Vegas at midnight.

The theme of Las Vegas is to gamble, to watch various shows and to relax. The hotels there are relatively cheaper than other cities, I guess it's a way to attract customers to casinos, which you can see it in every single hotel in Las Vegas. And there're various shows available in Vegas. We went to one called "the Mentalist", it's a magician who can read people's mind, it was pretty cool.
After leaving Las Vegas, we drove to Los Angeles. Even though many of my friends who went with me like San Francisco better but I still enjoy LA more. First of all, the weather is AWESOME, it's like summertime in January and the palm trees on the roadside are very beautiful. And I really like the style of the city--Modern, fashion, casual; especially because it has the famous Hollywood. We went on a tour to Hollywood to see superstar's houses and we also went to Madame Tussauds Museum to have a lot of silly but funny pictures.

My last stop for this trip is San Francisco. It's a very cozy and lovely city that's really suitable for living, We took the famous cable car to the Fishermans Whare and have great seafood by the sea.

The winter break is not short but not long either. I felt time passing so quickly that when I came back to school, I suddenly realized that the break is over and the new semester is coming. Well, it feels good to be back to school as well, so I hope I can really learn a lot and have fun during the coming semester.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art

Yesterday, I went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art which is a very famous museum with brilliant collections of different kinds of art.

The outside of the museum are very beautiful, from one side, there's a grassland where you can sit on the riverbank and look at the gorgeous sight around. The other side has a sculpture, from where you can see the City Hall.

There are many collections in the library, from paintings to furniture, building elements, sculptures, etc.

My first Thanksgiving in U.S.

Since it's my first time to live in U.S., so this Thanksgiving is my first Thanksgiving with a significant meaning to me. I set myself some "thanksgiving goals" to explore this cultural events of United States.
First, I have to eat Thanksgiving Turkey. I have learned from some American TV episodes and some other channels that it's a tradition to have turkey in Thanksgiving meal so how can I miss it.
Besides, I want to learn the culture of Thanksgiving, like the original story behind this holiday, and what people usually to in tradition and how do people so to celebrate today.
Last, but the most important to me, is go shopping! "Black Friday" has been a phrase that's repeated and appeared everywhere before Christmas, as a "shopaholic", I can't miss this great opportunity to get a good bargain as well as to experience "American shopping culture".

A student organization called GlobalED in GSE is very nice to prepare international students a Thanksgiving dinner where we can have a taste of turkey meat and some other traditional Thanksgiving dishes (it's a pity that i didn't bring my camera so I haven't got chance to take pictures). The Dean of GSE have introduced us why American people are celebrating Thanksgiving and then we made a toast together. Even though it was not in the usual dinner time (because it was in the afternoon), the food and drinks were still delicious and attractive to me.
On the night before Thanksgiving, I was invited to go to a classmate's home with several classmates to spend the holiday together. My classmate's mom had prepared us very delicious Chinese food, which made me a little homesick:P

And we went to Woodbury at the eve of Black Friday. People are just crazy, i can never imagine the queue can be so long if I didn't go there。

The queue in front of the Coach, people are crazy on Black Friday.