Source: Guangzhou Daily 2014-04-18 Page A7
Written by: Xu Jing
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

Why Oxford and Cambridge chose her

From the perspective of Chen Jingwen, the most important reason why she can be admitted into the two famous universities was her high undergraduate grades. “ The universities form UK attach great importance to the academic ability. Also I am an active girl with plentiful social experiences. All these factors contribute to my successful application,” she said.

Chen Jingwen is a senior student from School of International Studies, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU). The choice between the two universities has become a happy yet vexed issue for her.

In last September, Chen Jingwen started her application for the top five universities in the UK. In order to realize her dream, she studied the cutting-edge theories of linguistics, especially the principles of second language acquisition. Due to the complicated research, she pushed herself to read dozens of linguistic books within a week. Her hark work made her confident in front of Dr. Victoria Murphy from Department of Education, University of Oxford during the interview, which laid a solid foundation for her becoming one of the 18 lucky students enrolled in the department. At the same time, the University of Cambridge acknowledged her subject knowledge and academic abilities and sent her a letter of admission.

Chen Jingwen finished her double major studies in English and Spanish with the highest grades in her department. For three consecutive years, she has received the National Scholarship and SYSU First Class Scholarship for Excellent Students, which is rare to see in SYSU, let alone the School of International Studies.

Because of her academic excellence, Chen Jingwen was selected as an instructor in helping other students with their pronunciation and also served as a teaching assistant to an English listening and pronunciation class. As a teaching assistant, she had to spend much time in correcting students’ homework. Before doing that, she must listen to the materials first and worked out the reference answer to each question.

Under the risk of infectious diseases, she devoted herself to volunteer teaching in Cambodia

In the summer of 2013, in spite of the worries from her parents and friends, Chen Jingwen was determined to be a volunteer teacher in Cambodia for one month. She lived in Prohout Village, an international dangerous area where the Chinese insurance companies were not willing to cover.

When it comes to the harvest of this volunteer teaching experience, Chen Jingwen mentioned that it was hard to imagine the poverty without being on the spot. During the three years, she has accumulated 1,032 hours of volunteer work.