LI Siqi (MA, Chinese Arts and Culture stream)

Interview by Zhu Mengmeng

Hi, Siqi, how are you? Are you busy these days?
Yeah, I have just finished the mid-term assignments. I also have two dance shows at the CUHK CSSA's high-table dinner in March.

Wow, you are a dancer! Where do you practice?
I often go to the dance room on campus to practice dancing after class. Because of the film course I am taking this term [East Asian Film Genres in a Globalizing World], I also have the opportunity to perform on stage and in front of the camera. I really enjoy and cherish this kind of campus life.

That sounds great. Besides studying and dancing, are you trying to find a job? What do you want to do after you graduate?
After graduation, I will work in an entertainment company in Beijing. I want to be an actor but also want to work behind the scenes in film production and artist management. In the film courses I took this year, I not only learned about film theory, but also developed an interest in acting. Although it's not easy to be a real actor, I still want to give it a try.

How did you find the job?
Well, I worked as an intern in an entertainment company in Beijing last summer. My previous dream was to return to the company after graduation to be a producer, but I couldn't let go of my yearning for the stage and performance. Especially during last semester's Taiwanese cinema field trip, I met many directors who stuck to their film dream. I greatly admire them and want to pursue my dreams just like them. So, when I went back to Beijing, I asked the company's leaders if I could try to be an actor at the same time as a producer and they agreed.

Do you have any outstanding memory from your time at CCS or CUHK?
What impressed me most are the courses on cinema. From the exploration of Chinese film history last semester to the completion of a short film this semester, it has been a very exciting challenge for me. Despite the difficulties in making our first film, I still look forward to presenting a complete film at the end of this term.

Any message to current students or teachers?
Thank you very much to every teacher I met here. Thank you for the rich and professional course content they provided. I have gained a lot in every course, and really enjoyed expanding my knowledge and exploring new horizons. I also feel very lucky to have met excellent, interesting and friendly classmates. I hope we can cherish the remaining time at CUHK together.

Sophie Elisabeth REISS (MA, Issues in Contemporary China stream)

Interview by Zhu Mengmeng

Sophie, the term is ending soon. What is your plan after finishing the MA programme?
In the beginning, I was not sure what I would do after the programme ends. I applied for jobs, internships and further studies but initially only received rejections. Although I am quite open about where to live and what to do, it seemed difficult to find something suitable. Many "entry-level" positions require experience, while internships are often unpaid, postgraduate programmes are quite expensive, and so on. It can also take a long time to receive a response from an application. I have now received an offer for a really interesting postgraduate programme in Belgium, for another MA degree in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies. I did not expect to get in and didn't really plan for this, but I'm definitely very happy about it! The only downside is that I would have to leave Hong Kong.

The more you try, the more you succeed, isn't it? How did you try to find jobs and internships?
As both my undergraduate studies and the MA here are quite broad and interdisciplinary, I had many options, but that didn't really make it easier to find something. I have been using several websites to look for jobs and have been browsing through websites of institutions, companies, networks, universities, etc. I subscribed to some newsletters and mailing lists where I receive job announcements, exchanged ideas with friends and sometimes just send mails or my CV to places that I am interested in – and tried to send applications that were different from "traditional" cover letters. The amount of possibilities was a little overwhelming but also reassuring. Applying for jobs can be a little frustrating – making an effort to write a good letter, waiting for a response and hoping, just to receive very similar rejections week after week. Now it's easy to say that it was worth it, but at times it was not easy to find the motivation to write yet another letter and fill in all the information all over again. At some point, it's going to work, but of course it would be nicer to get there earlier.

Do you have any outstanding memory from your time at CCS and CUHK?
I enjoyed the time at CUHK and I am happy I had the opportunity to study here! While I sometimes found it a little difficult to connect with my classmates, I have made friends elsewhere in the university, for example through a language exchange programme and on the university dragon boat team. For the Hong Kong marathon, for example, the university provided shirts for all runners and cheering teams were a great source of support during the run. Besides my courses, I enjoyed the additional event offerings at CCS, such as talks by external speakers. In class, it's interesting to see what other students think about many topics. Most of my classmates seem to have very different backgrounds from me and raise points that I would otherwise not have considered. One of the highlights of the year was definitely the field trip to Taiwan! CCS and the people working there have been very kind, helpful and considerate whenever necessary, and it is good to know where to go if I need help.