LIU (ZUGUANG LIU)

I would like to define global citizen scholar as three essential elements, “global”, “citizen” and “scholar”. “Global” means out of the boundary of a country. Although I am an international student, that does not always mean I can be “global”. The difference between the two is that “global” emphasizes the unity of all people in the world. For me, to become a “global” person, I should be able to view a problem as every single human in the planet does. “Citizen” means the acknowledgement of being part of the world. In another word, I am supposed to follow the “global” rules and obligate my responsibility as a “global” person. Yet since I am a college student who has receive better education, my responsibilities are not only being a “citizen”, but also a “scholar”. A “scholar” can mean a professional researcher, or a prestigious leader, but s/he is definitely more able to approach a problem in a better educated way.

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At present, one of the world’s complex problem is the difficulty in academic communication between countries and cultures. This problem interests me most because I am a multi-cultural student originated in China but educated in America. During my college study in America I witnessed how Chinese higher education could learn from American education, and I also met a lot of American students interested in learning eastern knowledge like Chinese medicine, Chinese political system, etc. I would like to contribute to bridge the gap between cultures so that we could communicate and develop together.

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Throughout the Gateway to Honors course these semester, the biggest change of me is that I have a better understanding of who I am, what I will be and how I can do it. Although I have learned reflection in high school, the class still reminds me of its importance and confirmed that it is the best tool for me to learn as much as possible. My top five interest are technology, math, physics, gaming and detective fictions. My passion lies into innovative technology. From discovering my interests and passions, I found that engineering is indeed a desirable choice for my academic life or future career. Knowing my strength (learner, futuristic, individualization, focus, intellection) is not a terrible thing, though, because it helps me to identify when and how I will be useful to others, but I am still skeptical about that since I believe it is a kind of stereotyping. I may reflect to it in my later college career when I am doing group projects or being interviewed. An interesting thing is that my intellection strength may originate from my interest in detective fiction since young, because I admire those detectives coming out smart solutions by observing smallest details. In the mini-experience, I became familiar with the thematic areas and learning outcomes, which are useful to my future self-designed experience. Mini-experience was a good practice for it, during which we explored new ways to use VR/AR technology in education field. I also found it useful to beware of the learning outcome before conducting the experience, because I will be able to constantly reflect to the outcome when I am doing it. The value exploration also helps me to understand how I am, but ultimately one’s value is his/her own personal content. There is not right or wrong values for a person. The interesting thing is that my top one value is belief, but I believe that those words cannot describe my value completely, which forms a paradox. In this class we also studied grit, which I actually do not have a clear definition. To my understanding, grit is the ability to believe that I can do it, and devote most of my tenacity into it until I make it. This complexly involves one’s personal ability, value and satisfaction. I am not yet sure about the level of my grit over a certain thing, but I am willing to use my intellectual strength as well as adopt daily reflection to understand it in my future college career.

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Regarding where I want to go from here, I would like to become a global citizen scholar who persists a good level of grit and also offers others grit. This requires me to horn my strength of individualism. I am going to keep my pace of learning (which is my top one strength), constantly elevate my academic level so that I will be qualified to my interests. Most of my interests point to technology and engineering, so I am willing to contribute my effort learning them. Yet in the meantime, my intellectual strength tells me to absorb everything from the world, constantly think about them and try to understand them. In this case, I would also like to concentrate on the multi-cultural academic communication. Joining lots of communities of many cultures is my first step, because I have to learn inside this culture’s environment. In fact, I am planning to initiate a self-designed honors experience, where I may start up a new community for engineers in my home country, help them how to live in America, and understand their culture shock. This is the area where I can empathize as an international student. This is also the area I can grow as a global citizen scholar.