How I overcome my first year in university: After few months since my arrival in Bristol, I gradually felt my life was like a spinning gyro. I felt I was falling into this eddy: no new progress, less and less motivation of life. From time to time, I became very emo when going to bed. […]
Tony’s British Chronicles: A Journey Through the UK Read More »
Winston Zhang 2020 graduate of SCIE, studying at University College London Not only does SCIE give me chance to leave traditional school, but also it provides more options for my future. During the first few months, I didn’t get so much homework so that I can have more time to find out my interest. The
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Wu Yunxi(Victoria) 2020 graduate of SCIE, studying at Hongkong University The four-year high school life was so wonderful and short. Four years ago, SCIE was just a small school in Shuiwei village. Although the environment was far worse than the current campus, it made students feel very comfortable and warm. After I entered the school,
Memories and Lessons Learned: My Four-Year Journey at SCIE Read More »
Harper 2020 graduate of SCIE, studying at University College London “Causes formed in the past will be manifested as effects in the present.” I was taught by this saying at a well-being session before the finals at Grade 10. However, it was not until three years later, when my application season came to an end,
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Patricia Class of 2022, studying at University of California, Davis I had been a slow adapter since I was a child, and after I came to SCIE with great joy, I can’t help but doubt myself for a long time. I felt that I could not do anything here, and I was not good at
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Victoria Xie 2020 graduate of SCIE, studying at University College London If I would describe my four years in SCIE with a musical composition, it would definitely be Debussy’s <Arabesque No.1>, which flows smoothly yet embedded with all different types of colours. Although the dramatic twists that are normally seen in novels are absent, it
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Liu Liwei (Brian) 2022 graduate of SCIE, studying at Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen ♦ Acknowledging the school, 2017 As a student who has been used to the traditional Chinese education in public school, the “international Education” in SCIE sounds so fresh to me. At the same time, the freedom to choose my own
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Leo Xiong 2022 graduate of SCIE, studying at Vanderbilt University Looking back at my four years at SCIE, the memories that pop out most prominently would be the ones at the football team. I have started to show great passion for football in elementary school. While in middle school, I would grab a small wooden
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Li Ruoyu (Carl) 2020 graduate of SCIE, studying at Emory University with a double major in Physics/Economics It has been almost two years after graduating from SCIE, during which period of time the world is more than unpredictable. The global pandemic and a series of geopolitical and social factors have combined to make us the
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Anny Qiu Class of 2022, London School of Economics and Political Science 1. Those repeated “no”s finally got a “yes” When I chose the direction of my major, I used the method of exclusion. It was not until the end of G2 semester that I accidentally took the Further Mathematics lessons that I realized that
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My essay is on the recent development of China’s mental health care system and how it can help address this question. Though, I actually parried the question raised by the prompt, and I did not in the end emphasise too much that more care should be devoted to the socially vulnerable. Rather, I intended to underscore the complexity and ambiguity in any employment of these two notions — “socially vulnerable” and “responsibility” — in the concrete working of society. Through my study I discovered that the train of legislative efforts made in the 1980s to 2000s to legally recognise, to enhance public knowledge of, and to erect new asylums for, “the mentally ill,” in fact coincided spatiotemporally with government efforts in putting new agendas of foreign policies and city development to work. Thus, the recent development of China’s mental health care, from scratch to full maturity, is not solely the consequence of “humanitarian effort,” but also of some other ulterior motives. In my conclusion, I hinted that any answer to this question would entail empirical investigation into the concrete working of social institutions, and depending on the nature of this “socially vulnerable” group, claims of “responsibility” may be leveraged as veils for other purposes.
Before starting my research I did not by then have a well-formed hypothesis, but I did have Michel Foucault’s intriguing study on madness in mind. Due to the rather peculiar nature of the object of my study, I was not able to apply the sociological theories (Marxism, Functionalism, e.g.) I learnt in class to my own research. I must thank my sociology teacher for his encouragement and provision of many textbook resources and classical studies done in the field of mental health care. In addition to that, he prepared a statement of the school for my application to conduct short interviews at a local mental health hospital — this application, however, though quite expectedly, sank into oblivion — without his help this project would be very difficult.
I made a documentary “The Definition” about the situation of elderly in Shenzhen to enter this competition. As I have some previous knowledge in filmmaking, learning from TBU studio, I though it would be meaningful if I combined my filmmaking skills with sociology knowledge. In the meanwhile, after learning the very first chapter of sociology, The Family, I found out that the situation of elderly in the UK is different from that of elderly in Shenzhen. For instance, elderly have the responsibility taking care of their grandchildren and dance in the park for entertainment is distinctive in China. Therefore, I decided to make a documentary to record the interesting culture.
I learnt a lot during the preparation for the competition. I learned a lot about how to carry out an individual primary research when I was filming “The Definition”, which helps a lot in my current sociology study. Also, I understood sociology theories better. For instance, postmodernism used to be only a vague theoretical perspective for me, yet it amazed me knowing that elderly people participate actively in public activities can be considered as view of postmodernism.
Most importantly, I realized filmmaking can make some impacts on people, portraying problems of society. Experience of BSA opened my eyes and led me rethink about my future major in college. I want use my skills and knowledge to help more people, so I will probably try a major with humanity and filmmaking combined instead of pursuing the dream of being an artist alone.
Learning sociology gives me a new perspective in seeing how the world works, and it also lets me care more about the vulnerability in the society. Thank you to my sociology teacher, Richard Driscoll, who gave me lots of inspiration such as filming the dancing in the park, which is interesting to British people, and recommenced lots of sociological books about the elderly.
By listening to his advice, “The Definition” eventually divides into two parts: one is about the elderly in nursing home and the other is about people dancing in the park. Also, there is many interviews in the documentary to give a more well-rounded perspective.
I would like to thank my Math teacher Michael Jin and my friend Franchaska, who helped me with the voice over. Also, thanks to my family members, especially my dear grandmother, who gave me lots of insights related to the issue of elderly.
I made this documentary just before the deadline, thus it’s not so perfect. I’ll probably elaborate some shots and reedit it in the future.
If you are interested, you can click the link below and watch it.
Teng Xun Video：https://v.qq.com/x/page/u0862usad2v.html
Bilibili：https://www.bilibili.com/video/av38188271?from=search&seid=10452775157822232568
