“In a lifetime, you must meet a good teacher who changes your life” is a quote from a Hong Kong movie “Little Big Master”, and I met my geography teacher Athena Chan who change my mind; build my dream; change my life in high school. Also, she aims for me to major in Geography as I want to be a geography teacher like her teaching students to understand the world and helping students find their future. In Hong Kong, every student needs to choose an elective subject to study, and I chose geography since I was interested in it. Particularly, I knew that this course provides field trips to let students easier to learn through research on the world such as understanding how to plan a better city and how the river become.
I was not a hard-working student back in Hong Kong. I wasn’t mature enough to understand the importance of a college education. In high school I spent most of my time playing basketball because I wanted to be a basketball player at that moment; therefore, I just used a little bit of time for study. As a result, I not only could not follow the agenda of the classes but also blow up my academic result. Hence, my academic result turn worst, the university dream became far away from me. There were many teachers who give up on me and thought I don’t care about my future. I wanted to prove them wrong, and I found my geography teacher miss Chan helped me catch up on the syllabus. Even though she was a geography teacher, she not only taught me geography but also educated me on other subjects. She also allowed me to use the geography room became my study room; moreover, she gave me her phone number to ask questions during the revision time. However, I was too late to pick up the syllabus, and in the public exam, I did not get a high score enough to apply to Hong Kong Universities. I really thank Miss Chan did not give up on me and supporting me a lot, and the most important thing is she helps me know my dream is becoming a good geography teacher.
Fortunately, my family can support me to study abroad. I knew that was a precious opportunity to give me one more chance to become a college student, so I really treasured it. In 2017, ESL class was my first step to studying abroad since I knew that English was not good enough as my barrier. As a result, I spent all the time improving my English. Nevertheless, due to cultural differences and self-confidence problems, I did not have friends and did not improve my communication skill in school. I needed to find some ways adjusting those problems, so I went to the school sports center to play basketball, which was the best way to meet new friends, adapting new culture, and improving English skills for me. Playing basketball was the time when I can feel confident in myself since when I played basketball with strangers, I didn’t need to talk, but we can connect with each other and win the game. In the end, we can become friends. I met a lot of students on the basketball court, and some of them become my study partners and some of them become my best friend. All of them helped me overcome my barriers since during the game if I wanted to win the game, I needed to chat with them about the strategy, and this process could enhance my English conversation skill. Second, some of my teammates are native American, when I hung out with them, they picked me to some places which were similar to my home country such as Chinese restaurants, and they invented me to party to meet more people. Those methods can help me solve the culture shocks.