On June 12th, a group of experienced journalists from the U.S. visited the History Museum of Wuhan University, and had a group discussion with students of various majors. Their meeting provided a good opportunity for both American journalists and Chinese students to enhance their mutual understanding.
Having worked for such famous news media as Politico, Harvard Business Review, the Daily Beast, Financial Times and NPR, these journalists showed strong interest in Chinese society as well as students’ personal choices, campus lives and visions of the future. Students from the School of International Software, Economics and Management, Mathematics, Journalism and Communication, and Foreign Languages took an active part in discussions and shared their opinions on diverse topics.
When asked about their reasons for choosing Wuhan University and present major, the majority of participants shared the common view that the most natural choice is the best, and personal interests play an important role in these decisions. Then Ben White from Politico mentioned the success of Alibaba.com and other Chinese Internet companies, and asked students’ view about business motivation, and a student shared a story: “I have a friend who developed an app to make lovers feel close to each other. It was really successful and had ten thousand users.”
This kind of exchange activity has been organized by the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs for several years. The next stop for this group will be Shanghai; WHU was the only university where they visited and had a discussion with students in China this time.
(Edited by Nancy & Sijia Hu)
