That Winter, I Manifested the Nearly Unattainable Dream of Studying Abroad.

“Life always begins with one step outside of your comfort zone.”-Shannon L. Alder.
In January 2020, I have accomplished a dream to study abroad without spending a pound. Not only did a full-time master's student difficultly afford the "millions of tuition fees at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the UK" and "the monthly fixed expenditure of more than TWD $50,000 for living expenses, rent, transportation, miscellaneous expenses, etc" but also needed to challengingly complete the dual master’s degrees in Taiwan and the United Kingdom within 2 years. Fortunately, the College of Management at Sun Yat-Sen University has made this untouchable utopia dream of studying abroad into a reachable reality!

In January 2020, I have accomplished a dream to study abroad without spending a pound. Not only did a full-time master's student difficultly afford the "millions of tuition fees at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) in the UK" and "the monthly fixed expenditure of more than TWD $50,000 for living expenses, rent, transportation, miscellaneous expenses, etc" but also needed to challengingly complete the dual master’s degrees in Taiwan and the United Kingdom within 2 years. Fortunately, the College of Management at Sun Yat-Sen University has made this untouchable utopia dream of studying abroad into a reachable reality!

Through "the Scholarships/Fellowship for International Degree or Exchange" funded by the College of Management at Sun Yat-sen University and the Ministry of Education, an international Master's student can devotedly finish the demanding studies in a foreign country without being concerned about the insufficiency of living expenses. Hence, this scholarship program is a dream for numerous students, and I did try my ultimate best to gain this "scholarship with only 5 places per year", which is the greatest glory of my academic career.

For presenting my deepest gratitude to the College of Management at Sun Yat-sen University, I have strived to achieve the double Master's Degree with "Distinction" awarded by Nottingham Trent University in return. I deeply appreciate to the College of Management for supporting me to manifest my dream with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step out of my comfort zone and kicking off my life journey of learning to be an international talent. As the saying goes by the inspirational writer, Alder, at the beginning: "The real-life begins when you step out of your comfort zone."

Studying Abroad Has Made A Profound Impact on My All-Around Learning.

"Stay hungry, stay foolish." - Steve Jobs
My name is Ou Jia-Mei, and my foreign friends call me: Sabina Ou. I was born and bred in Kaohsiung city, Taiwan. By receiving Taiwan's nine-year compulsory education, I was certain that my foreign language ability had remained above the average. In the light of my continuous efforts to enhance my listening, speaking, reading and writing English skills for more than 20 years in Taiwan as well as the recognition by the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) with the almost full-mark, I was always confident that my English ability had basically minor difference as that of a native speaker. Nevertheless, whilst studying in the UK, I noticed that I failed to fully understand my classmates' English accents from all over the world in the class. This is the start of my all-around learning journey.

My professors and schoolmates from different countries and mother of tongues spoke English with unique accents. During that period of time, I had to comprehend the key points they were trying to express with my 200% concentration and instantly shared my perspectives with them since it was a debate class. In addition, I needed to work with my foreign schoolmates as a Human Resource Consultant Team to resolve the global human resource issues to compete with other student teams to win a contract with a large enterprise. It was our final exam.

In the beginning, I merely understood 85% of my Indian and Nigerian team members' English speaking, therefore I needed to repeat their main points frequently to ensure that there was no misunderstanding between us. Each meeting took around five hours. Every time we finished our team meetings, I would walk home with a heavy heart, constantly critically asking myself why I had difficulty understanding what my non-English nationalities of teammates said, thus I humbly examined my own shortcomings and figured out solutions in a short time.

I started to watch both English news from non-native English-speaking countries and South Asian influencers' YouTube English channels. I practised comprehending their English expressions and accents in bits and pieces during my spare time. In the last few meetings, I gradually understood my classmates' ideas of expression, English accent, and word choice. Our meetings became smoother and more cheerful. We inspired each other by exchanging different ideas of problem-solving strategies, which has simultaneously improved our abilities to solve global issues. Eventually, the last few meetings were efficiently completed within an hour.

On one hand, on account of the multinational interactions and teamwork with foreign professors and classmates, I have improved my foreign language skills, cross-cultural communicative and collaborative skills, cross-cultural cognition, problem-solving skills, independent learning and critical thinking, and agile adaptability to change. On the other hand, the transformation of my learning brings three brand-new, influential views of meaning in life: worldview, values, and outlook on life. This was a surprise I didn't expect prior to studying abroad, a flipping academic experience that went beyond pure. Consequently, the scholarship funded by the College of Management of Sun Yat-Sen University has sustained me to experience life on the other side of the world and enter Nottingham Trent University in the UK with world-class education, which has opened up my learning horizons.

The changes in the perspectives have also inspired me to proceed a career plan. Since my English ability has continuously improved for a long time, I can be able to chat with my international classmates about more in-depth life topics and future plans. The spirit of my foreign friends who successfully run their businesses and courageously step out of their comfort zones challenge me to maximise my potentials by working and learning from a multinational company abroad prior to starting up a booming business in the future.

I am convinced that the efforts made in the future multinational corporation or the products and brand spirit developed in my future business likely inspire more those who desire to valiantly walk out of their safe heavens and become a motivational person with a ground-breaking life journey.

"Stay hungry, stay foolish" is what Steve Jobs, encouraged himself and the graduates in the commencement at Stanford University in the United States. It has profoundly impacted me as well. And today, I hope this viewpoint on life could also stimulate you who is reading this article. Thanks to you, to Steve Jobs, and to myself who work hard perseveringly.

During my time in school, I was a recipient of the College of Management Academic Heritage Grant, the Mr. Jin-Fu Zhong Memorial Scholarship, and the Yuyu Chin Lu Education Foundation Scholarship. I believe these scholarships have made a great impact on my studies, life, and career. First, in terms of living and studying, since my family had some financial problems, I had to work part-time to earn money for my family’s living expenses after I started college. When I entered my freshman year, I was very worried about whether I would be able to successfully complete my university studies. But fortunately, I was able to apply for the Scholarship, which helped to ease my family’s financial situation and reduce my working hours. This gave me more time to study and improve my professional skills. I think without the help of these scholarships, I might not have been able to graduate with such good grades or be accepted to a graduate program at NTU’s College of Management. I am very grateful for the help from NSYSU College of Management, the Foundation, and older students!

The scholarships also helped with my career. After I applied for the scholarship, the College of Management invited alumni or EMBA students to share their career development with us. The alumni I met at the time were very diverse, spanning traditional industries, finance, technology, and more. They shared many life and career experiences with the scholarship recipients. I am very grateful for the College of Management’s arrangement and the dedication of the alumni, which enabled me to have a clearer understanding of my future career development and to set goals for myself to refine my abilities. The professors and alumni that we met at the award ceremony were also very caring and were willing to give us guidance on our problems.

Overall, I am very grateful to the College of Management and the alumni for their willingness to give students with financial difficulties more opportunities to improve their families’ financial situations and enhance their career and academic development.

I highly recommend that students who have financial difficulties apply for these scholarships. In addition to the advantages mentioned above, the preparation of documents during the application period is also a kind of self-assessment, which will be of great help in writing resumes or CVs in the future. If you are fortunate enough to win the award, you can also talk with other winners during the award ceremony to learn more about each other.
NSYSU is really a big warm family – congratulations and welcome to the new students! If you have any questions, whether it is about scholarships or career, please feel free to contact me through my Facebook or LinkedIn. I encourage you to explore your interests during your college years, and I wish you a wonderful college life!

I am honored to receive the scholarship with honors from the Sun Yat-sen Management Education Foundation. I recall the time I applied for the scholarship in my first year of study. I was very apprehensive. From compiling my past experiences to sending in my resume for review, I kept reflecting on whether I was qualified for the scholarship. And when I received the scholarship, I was very grateful and deeply aware that the scholarship was not easy to come by.

Reasons for Application:
After graduating from college, I applied for the master's program in the Institute of Public Affairs Management at National Sun Yat-sen University, and I was admitted to the program. At first, I didn't know what research direction I wanted to take, and I couldn't imagine what kind of career I wanted to pursue in the future. In addition, I wasn't financially stable at the time. However, I was told by the assistant of the Institute about the scholarship, so I started to compile my profile slowly. During the process, I found that I was highly interested in the concept of "social influence", which includes photographing the streets in the society and experiencing the customs of different communities through participation in community development. Therefore, I gradually discovered the career direction that I wanted to pursue in the process of compiling application data. Establishing a foundation for future development:
After being awarded the scholarship, I attended a gathering at Sunset Beach Resort. Many of the faculty members and alumni who attended that gathering shared their stories as well as their efforts to promote the connection with the local community and to preserve the beautiful harbor and bay. While chatting with various seniors, I learned about the concept of "sustainability" that the College of Management was about to promote, and I became interested in the concept. At the same time, the College has begun to offer many sustainability-related courses to nurture talents in this field, and I have been involved in learning a lot of knowledge about sustainability, including taking courses such as sustainability report writing and corporate carbon emission calculation. My dissertation is a study of social engagement, and I have made a correlation research between CSR and USR, and this dissertation has been awarded the top five in the 2020 CSR Master's Thesis Award.

Commitment to Sustainable Development:
The scholarship I received from the National Sun Yat-sen Management Education Foundation opened up opportunities for my future development and inspired my passion for sustainable development. After graduation, I joined KPMG International, where I mainly work on climate change and sustainable development, writing reports for companies and formulating their net-zero carbon emission pathways. As I am very enthusiastic about the field of sustainability and have seen the development of international trends and the revision of domestic regulations related to climate change, I suggest that the younger students take the courses like "Writing of Corporate Social Responsibility Reports" and "Life Cycle Analysis and Writing of Inventory Report." Through theory and practical experience, take your the first step into the field of sustainability. Meanwhile, I hope that you can use your power to make an impact on the sustainability community and make a contribution to the environment and society.

After graduating from the National Sun Yat-sen University, College of Management, I entered the software industry and continued to move up as a front-end engineer. From accumulating technical skills and product development experience, to participating in competitions and publishing books, I am fortunate to have chosen this path, which has allowed me to develop and has opened up a variety of possibilities and surprises. But for me, this was not an easy choice make. Without the support and assistance that I received, I might not have had the opportunity to experience this kind of life. I remember that from the time I was in fifth or sixth grade all the way to graduate school, my family always qualified as a low-income household. Although I did not have to pay most of the tuition and fees, and I continued to receive subsidies and supplies from the government and various charitable organizations, my family had many special circumstances. From an early age, I felt the need to be as independent as possible in school, life, and financially, and even to help my family. Therefore, from high school on, I would try to get part-time jobs and apply for scholarships whenever they were available. In retrospect, I am very grateful to these scholarships for helping me through my long school years and my family’s financial struggles.

However, because of my sensitive nature, I remember that during my high school years, every time I received a tuition waiver or a scholarship, instead feeling happy, I would feel ashamed. Although this feeling of inferiority has been greatly reduced since I entered graduate school, for a long time it has made it hard to feel confident in myself.

Leaving Tainan and coming to NSYSU to study was a very important period in my life. In addition to being truly independent in my life, my participation in departmental activities and the mentality I learned as part of a sports team helped me to gradually forget my inferiority complex. I began to care less about my family’s situation and develop my self-confidence step by step. In addition, after receiving the College of Management’s Work-Study Scholarship, I was required to serve a certain number of hours helping out with the College of Management’s general affairs or activities. In addition to being able to participate in special events and lectures, I was able to break away from my previous feeling of just accepting money without giving anything back. Gradually, I stopped feeling so awkward and ambivalent about receiving scholarships, and now simply feel grateful and hope that I can move forward in response to these noble people’s wishes.

Finally, what I want to share with younger students is that when you are immersed in negative emotions, you can try to think from a different perspective. Although these difficulties and challenges you encounter may seem like obstacles, they can also become forward momentum to push yourself ahead. When you really get your ideal life and look back, you will be grateful for everything you encountered along the way.