Danielle CP#5

On 10/5, I met with Vicky again for our next conversation partner meeting. We spent our time discussing various aspects of how social welfare operates in the United States versus in China, where she is from. As she asked questions and I gave answers, I could tell that those weren't the answers she was expecting. I think that she thought our social welfare system was a lot better and a lot more fair than it actually is. We got on the topic of homelessness, and she said she never expected to see this many homeless people in America. Another thing we talked about was testing for higher education (GMAT, GRE, SAT, ACT), as she is incredibly determined to get accepted into FSU's masters program for accounting for this upcoming spring term. However, she's concerned about her pronunciation and not being able to follow what the professor will be saying the classroom. I encouraged her as much as I could, and told her that learning a foreign language is difficult and requires  a lot of work, and also reminded her of all the progress she has made thus far. I really give her and the other CIES students a lot of credit for moving to a foreign country and spending 5 hours everyday for months just sitting in a classroom and doing nothing but English. That is a lot of work and takes a lot of dedication and commitment. With that being said, I think that Vicky will be just fine in her masters program, especially as she continues studying at CIES and getting better at English.