Program Assistant Introduction Yiting Xu COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Program Assistant Introduction Yiting Xu COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog Today is our final PA introduction for the fall semester. Youve already met  Eloy,  Adriana, Dina and Allison. Rounding out our fall PAs is Yiting Xu, MPA 2016, who started at SIPA directly after undergraduate school at Fudan University. Her favorite quote is Stay  hungry. Stay foolish, and shes lived up to that motto by taking advantage of all  SIPA has to offer.   Yiting Xu is a second-year SIPA student concentrating in Economic and Political Development. She is enrolled to SIPA directly after she graduated from Fudan University with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications. During college, she had excellent academic performance and diverse internship experience. Before joining SIPA, she served as an editor at the state-owned news agency in Beijing, and interned at the municipal government of Shanghai. She also interned for a social enterprise in this summer. She believes that two-year study at SIPA can provide her with countless opportunities in the future. What most surprised you about SIPA after you arrived? I was mostly surprised by the diversity of my fellow students. I can still remember on the first day of orientation, students from different countries, backgrounds, and interests came to me and introduce themselves, and many of them are now my best friends. The most amazing part of diversity is that it can be turned into great possibilities. At SIPA, you can feel free to do anything, and you can always find the best resources to help and support you. How did you find the core curriculum at SIPA? To me, the core curriculum is  really well-organized and useful in the way that they lay the foundations for further courses. To be specific, I took two core curriculums during my first semester, which are Politics of Policymaking and Microeconomics. The first course provided me the chance to establish the skills of writing memos, which is the most common writing format at SIPA. While microeconomics  served as the prerequisite for many other economic courses. Though I didn’t have any background in economics before, I found this course to be  very clear and organized. In addition, there are plenty resources, like recitations, TAs, and DRAs to seek help from. What has been the most challenging part of you SIPA experience? The most challenging part is that I am fresh from college and relatively young compared to other students. Most of the time, I feel there’s lots of information to catch up on with the students who already are professionals in the field when having conversations or doing group work together. In  terms of looking for jobs, there’s also some shortcomings for being a recent  grad. However, I believe this is the fastest way for me to grow and learn; the process might be challenging, but the outcome will be beneficial. What kind of work do you hope to do when you graduate? Through studying at SIPA, I found my interest in economic development and management. I hope to find a firm that has specific interest in China or Asian markets/business, where I could apply my knowledge and skills into practice. What advice do you have for current applicants? New York City is really a vibrant and exciting place to explore, and the experience of SIPA is definitely the best part of it. So don’t hesitate applying for it! If you happen to have any questions, don’t be shy to ask for help from the Office of Admissions! Wish you all best luck! [Photo courtesy of  Yiting Xu]