Hellen Tian

 

My name is Xiaosu (Hellen) Tian, I come from Qingdao (Tsingtao), Shandong Province, China. I am a sophomore student studying journalism at University of Missouri-Columbia.I spent my freshman year in Harbin Institute of Technology, majored in International Trade and Economics. I previously worked for AIESEC HIT Outgoing Exchange department, my main job was to help the exchange participants to find volunteer opportunity oversea. By working with AIESEC HIT, I discovered I enjoy cross cultural communication and multimedia storytelling, so at the end of my freshman year, I decided that I want to study journalism instead of international trade and economics, so I transferred to UMC to study further on journalism.

 

In fall 2012 semester, I worked for MUTV 23 Sports production team, with in this process I learnt some basics about how to work in a newsroom. I will be Mizzou Asian American Association communication chair for 2013-2014 school year, and I’m looking forward to help build bridges between different cultures and encourage mutual understanding with what I take away from what I’ve learnt in classrooms.

 

I love food, coffee , symphony, and sports. I believe wonderful things that happens in our daily life are the cracks for cultural barriers, and these things provide crucial topics for cross-cultural conversation.

 

I’m also a big fan of sociology, and I’m looking forward minor in it. Sociology helps me to figure out how things work and why things happen, by learning sociology I am able to see the world through my own eyes. Moreover, I find myself ask “why” and “how” questions more often than before I ran into sociology.

 

My dream job was to become a translator who translate pieces that are useful for cross-cultural communication. However language alone sometimes fall short in communication, much less for cross-cultural communication. Therefore, multimedia storytelling has a crucial role to play in cross-cultural communication. So what I’m also looking to do is to find the best way to tell the story in another cultural context.

 

 

 

Yicheng Liu

 

My name is Yicheng Liu, or you could just call me Christina. I was born in Shanghai, a metropolitan city in China, a place I love. In 2012, I transferred from Fudan University as a sophomore to University of Missouri-Columbia to learn journalism. Now, as a rising senior, I major in Strategic Communication at Mizzou. I came to journalism and strategic communication field because I enjoy listening to stories. Whenever I talk with people, they offer me various but distinct life stories to me, among which I would never have a chance to experience. There are so many valuable things happening in the world all the time and I really can’t just sit still and pay no attention to the outside world, so I want to be a journalist, which allows me to listen to people.Moreover, I am passionate in journalism because it is more than an occupation. Being a journalist, to me, means that I can have the ability to give voice to voiceless and get more people heard.

 

Before coming to America, I spent 7 years in the only girls’ school in Shanghai, which was a huge fun for me and enabled me to better communicate with all kinds of girls. During the 2-year study in Fudan University, I had an internship in Documentary Channel of Shanghai TV Station as a editing assistant. Unlike Columbia, Shanghai is a metropolitan city with more than 23 million people. The best part of the city is that it offers a huge variety of delicate cuisines!

I love travelling, for it enables me to see more, hear more and learn more. So far, I’ve been to UK, Utah, Florida, California, Taiwan and Japan. I’ve studied playing the clarinet since I was 9 years old and since then, music has become an irreplaceable part of my life. What I usually do in my leisure time is that I will look for some indie singers or bands and write articles to recommend their music to others.

 

Please let me know of any suggestions or comments, I would love to hear anything and everything you have to say!

 

 

Ann Wade

 

My name is Ann Wade. I am currently studying journalism and sociology at the University of Missouri. My interest in sociology comes from Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of self.

 

Outside of classes, I work for two departments at Mizzou; Residential Life and the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative. I teach a FIG class related to journalism for ResLife and I work as the only undergraduate assistant at the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative. I’ve also worked as a volunteer at the True/False film festival and assisted in focus group studies with Journalism faculty.

 

From those facts you may guess I am passionate about diversity, and you’d be right! I hope work in journalism will bring light to issues of diversity facing our world. 

 

In my personal life I am a bit of a news junkie, an environmental advocate and a vegan (meaning I don’t eat any animal products). I’m not one yet, but I hope to be a world traveler one day. I am also hoping to join the Peace Corps after graduation. My family lives in St. Louis but I call Kansas City home. We have two dogs, Ellie and Drako. Drako is our young Belgian Malinios and if you know anything about the breed, you know he’s a handful but he is an absolute joy.