About Me

Just so you're a little more aware of who I am and what my general experience was in China...

My name is Alycia and I am a 2016 graduate of Syracuse University with a major in Modern Foreign Languages (French and Spanish) and minors in Chinese History and Chinese Language. I additionally studied Japanese while I was still at SU for the extra challenge. I guess it can't be too hard to tell that my passion is in learning foreign languages and cultures!

I actually decided to study in Beijing, China for the duration of my senior year with the intent of improving my Mandarin language skills after studying a couple years of the basics in my regular SU classes. The big drawback to this plan was that I had to miss my graduation because of the different semester schedules, but it was well worth it in the end for all of the opportunities that were gained. I went from using elementary phrases to being conversational within a matter of months, and it made the overall experience of being in China really immersive. I loved every minute of being there, even when things were a little stressful due to the language barriers and cultural differences.

I had another passion that fueled my desire to go to China. I had been practicing mixed martial arts since I had been in my junior year of high school, and by the time I had left to China, I had earned my first degree black belt. I was excited to see how all those years of practice would come into play when I started learning a Chinese style martial art, but to my surprise, it was completely different from what I expected. After arriving in Beijing, I immediately sought out and located an extremely talented instructor who conducted most of his classes at the famous Ritan Park (日坛公园). Zhang Laoshi (张老师), my instructor from the Milun School of Traditional Wushu, was familiar with many different forms of Chinese style martial arts, but the one I primarily studied was Shaolin Kung Fu. I went nearly everyday to receive his training, traveling at least an hour there and an hour back from campus. I was taken aback by all of the warmups and teachings, which were usually more fluid and philosophical than how my martial arts teachings were back home. I also had the opportunity twice to travel with the Milun School to the Gubeikou 古北口 section of the Great Wall and to stay at the remote Hexi Village at the foot of the mountain as we practiced kung fu all day. During my second semester abroad, I also joined the Xingyiquan club at Tsinghua University to supplement everything I was learning in my core martial arts classes.

My ability to come here and be able to do many of these things was due in large part to the scholarships I received. I was originally in Suzhou, China during the summer of 2015 as part of the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, and then once I started my study abroad program in Beijing, a large part of my funding came from the Gilman Scholarship Program and from my awards at Syracuse University. Each semester while I was in Beijing, I went on a two-week signature seminar trip that taught me about the different ethnic minority groups of China (Fall Semester) and gave me an overview of the country's history (Spring Semester). As a group we traveled to many different cities and even to some remote villages where we were welcomed with open arms by the people living there. These trips were probably some of the most intense experiences we had while in China together and they broadened our education beyond the traditional classroom setting.