I was born in China. When I was young, my aunt immigrated to U.S.A. with her husband. Since I knew I would have a chance to immigrate abroad with my family, it became one of my dreams. However, I had never known I had to spend at least seven years for waiting to be able to come to America.
Like other children, I went to school for about 12 years education in China. Sometimes, I was curious whether the education that I received in China was the same as in United State. In school, I was a good student and tried to do all my best on everything. I went to school everyday without any absents although I was sick sometimes. I did my homework and paid attention in the classes. So, I always got the good grades on my record. Meanwhile, I especially worked very hard on learning English because then I could prepare better for my foreign life in the future. I learned my English from as easy as alphabet and pronunciation to the grammar and complicated writing skills. However, although I paid attention carefully in class, did the assignment, and memorized the vocabularies and grammar, I couldn’t use and speak English fluently as I expected.
At year 2001, I was able to come to NY. Although my dream came true finally, I was very worried about whether I was able to fit in this country because of the language. When I came to this country, I was already 19 years old. I decided to go to an English learning center to get my GED diploma in stead of going to the high school because I could get into a college quickly. In the learning center, I had to study and pass five courses which were writing, reading, social studies, science, and mathematics in order to get the diploma. I learned a lot of new things and made many friends in my class. During that time, I felt my English level was enhanced, but still not good enough for me to speak it fluently. I thought the reason was I didn’t practise a lot after class. When I was being with my friends or my family, I preferred to use my native language because I felt more comfortable to do so. However, I knew no matter how well I did in the class; there was no way to help me improve my English if I kept using Chinese a lot. Later on, I found a job from the youth employment program. Because it was my first job in America, I was very excited about it although I just worked as the office assistance at that time. My supervisor was a very nice and patient person who taught all the basic office skills such as copying, fax, reception service, etc. Through this job, I also learned lots of lessons that I never heard in the class such as how to cooperate with my co-workers, the importance of being responsible, how to get the work done more efficiently, how to deal with the work stresses, etc. At that time, I really improved my English a lot by working in the English environment. Also, I felt all the precious experiences that I had earned from this job made my life easier.
Now, I have been learnt in BMCC for three semesters with a perfect GPA from now on. No matter how busy I am, I must keep working, join some clubs, or participate in some significant activities with my friends because I know the academic grade is not the only one important thing in my lift, but also lessons what I can learn from my experiences and the communication and interaction with other people. They are also the ways for me to improve myself and to succeed in the future.