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The Flagship program world is large, with 9 languages across 22 universities, but its mission is clear. At the University of Oregon that mission is to offer our undergraduates a life-changing opportunity to complete any major while becoming professionally proficient in Chinese. We are especially reminded of this each time we send our students to the hallmark of our program: a year abroad in China, with half the time attending regular Chinese university courses, and half the time in an internship. It is an exciting time. It is an opportunity that is hard fought through countless hours of difficult study, balancing major courses with language courses, and all the while maintaining high academic standards. And so when our students finally make it to this Capstone year, it is a celebratory moment for everyone involved.

University of Oregon Chinese Flagship students celebrate another year.

Now in our ninth year, we are sending two students to join the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China: Erik Thorbeck and Henry Lawrence. Like so many of our majors, Erik and Henry have multiple majors. Erik is a double major in Chinese and Planning, Public Policy and Management; and Henry is majoring in Business Administration and Chinese. Erik is also a recipient of the prestigious Boren Scholarship, and has setup an internship with a planning group in Shanghai.

As you can guess, taking courses in Nanjing and completing an internship entails a lot more than those several words can contain. Erik and Henry will be with top-level national Flagship scholars from other US universities, join an even larger cohort that is connected to Johns-Hopkins SAIS’ graduate school, and most importantly become an infinitely small part of the daily ebb of flow of more than 3.6 million local Nanjing lives. They will speak Chinese non-stop with friends, faculty, families, and coworkers. They will also learn local expressions and dialects. They will walk when the bus breaks, surge when the subway doors open, eat things only foreign guests are offered, hang their laundry on the public clothes line, and work to demystify what it means to be contemporary Chinese in a country that we at home in the US desperately needs to know more about.

And that’s the rub: Erik and Henry aren’t just attending a Flagship program, and they aren’t just changing their own life perspectives. They are part of an important project to help all of us learn from their experience, and grow just that much richer in our understanding.