“When I first came to Bellaire, my English communication was not very good.
I moved here from Shanghai during high school, and one of my biggest impressions when I first came to Bellaire was how inclusive and friendly the atmosphere was.
Because my English was terrible, people here helped me a lot, step by step, to adapt into the community by simply speaking to me. Now as a senior, I would say thank you to Bellaire for helping me grow into a more mature person.
Before I came, I was worried since I had some stereotypes about America. I saw a lot online about racism and people not being very friendly. Especially because this is Texas, I was worried about what people would be like. Coming here completely changed my mind. Texas is really a friendly place with everyone around me being welcoming, and it changed my mind a lot.
One of the biggest culture shocks for me was how diverse Bellaire is. In China, most of the people around you share the same Chinese culture. Especially at Bellaire, I can see a very huge diversity in the culture instead of just the traditional Texas type.
The Bellaire environment helped me a lot, so that motivated me to help others. As a junior and even a senior, I started becoming more involved in school activities and clubs. I became an officer in Ping Pong Club and Badminton Club because I wanted to contribute back. This friendly atmosphere motivates me a lot to be friendly toward other people.
The people in China are also very friendly. Coming into America, the main issue for me was the language barrier.
However, my English improved really fast. I guess it’s from hard work and the environment. When people around you are talking English, I start talking in English. My vocab doesn’t increase a lot by speaking once, but my daily communication becomes more fluent after adapting into the environment.
I also studied English in China, so I learned most of my grammar and don’t have a problem in understanding the sentence structure. I really had a lack of vocab. So here, I just read more books, around an hour a day, to improve. Basically, learning English for me here was just to increase my vocabulary.
One of my favorite things about Bellaire is definitely the students here. Everyone is very nice and kind by helping each other. It feels like a very inclusive community, and I think that’s what makes Bellaire special.
After graduation, I’m going to the University of Texas at Austin and majoring in mathematics. In college, I hope to improve my social skills even more, learn to organize myself in this later stage in life and grow to become a more independent person.
One thing Bellaire has taught me is to stay positive and passionate towards our daily life, even in hard times and difficulty. That’s something I’ll carry with me in the future.”
