This week’s Campus profile features senior Susanna Dolan! Susanna spent the past 6 months in Shanghai, China studying abroad and interning at a non-profit!
Name: Susanna Dolan
Class Year: 2017
Hometown: Brooklyn, NYC
Major: East Asian Studies (China Concentration)
Extracurricular activities: Dance and Violin
Favorite place on campus: Sitting next to the big windows in Greer, looking out over Castle Court.
Do you have an embarrassing Camel moment?
Last fall during the orchestra’s end-of-semester concert, my chair fell through a hole on the stage in Evans Hall. It made a pretty loud bang noise. As I was playing, I tried to get the chair leg out of the hole but it was stuck, so I had to continue playing the rest of the concert with one chair leg stuck halfway into the stage floor.
You recently returned from an awesome summer long internship with Stepping Stones, a non-profit in Shanghai, China! What is Stepping Stones and what was your experience interning with this organization?
Stepping Stones is a not-for-profit charitable organization with the mission to improve the education and general welfare of disadvantaged children in China. Stepping Stones works with expatriate and local Chinese volunteers to teach English in Shanghai’s migrant schools and community centers. Aside from continuing my teaching position from the semester, one of the most gratifying aspects was being able to see the progression of the students’ English through just a few sessions. Aside from the debate over whether or not our lessons actually affected the students, being able to create relationships with my students, and fellow instructors was more rewarding than I could have anticipated.
Any adorable stories from any of the kids you taught?
All of my kids thought that it was really strange that I’m left handed. Just as a quick explanation, there are negative attitudes to those that are left handed in China. Many parents will force their children to switch over to being right handed because of the stigmas associated with being left handed. There were days throughout my internship where I would start to write on the board and you could hear the whole class gasp and begin to whisper in Chinese to each other about how weird it was that I was writing with my left hand. It was cute how they’d ask me if it felt weird to write “backwards” or if I did everything with my left hand.
You’ve studied Chinese dance since childhood and it has remained a big part of your life ever since. You’ve performed at some of the most prestigious venues around NYC including: Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NBC Studios and countless more. How has this extracurricular hobby affected your life?
I have been dancing at the same dance school since I was 3. Dance has impacted and affected my life in ways that I will never fully be able to articulate. However, watching and learning the ins and outs of the school for such a long time, I have realized the enormous role that cultural education plays in our world today; whether it be through language, the arts etc…
What do you hope to do post-grad?
After graduation I hope to work in the field of cultural education with a focus on second language acquisition. Whether it be working in China or here in the States, I hope to help create a strong cross-cultural relationship between the two countries.