As the son of military personnel, Dawson Miller ’23 is no stranger to traveling and being exposed to a diverse range of cultures, languages, and customs. As a result of continuous movement due to his father’s deployment, he rapidly developed a profound sense of admiration for cultures outside of his own, which increasingly piqued his interest in learning more about different countries and the customs that make them unique. With his growing desire to learn more about the nations he has yet to explore, Dawson Miller decided to attend URI after learning about the Chinese Flagship Program, an advanced language curriculum that assists students in achieving a professional level of proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. Miller believed this would be a great opportunity to fully immerse himself in a culture that he has yet to be exposed to and decided to pair the flagship’s curriculum with a marketing major.

Aside from the flagship program, Miller was especially interested in attending URI because of the Student Veterans Organization‘s strong presence on campus, which he believed would help him more smoothly transition back to living in the United States after spending 12 years in Spain due to his father’s enlistment. “The SVO gave me a place to surround myself with people and a way of life that just felt like home when I first arrived on campus,” he explains. A smooth return to the U.S. was critical for him being that his initial transition wasn’t as seamless. Miller recounts some of the struggles he faced after the life-changing move. “People cycle in and out of your life every 3 months,” he says. “It’s tough on a kid, especially if it’s someone I connected with.” Despite this, Miller grew to value his experiences and is now glad for the time he spent abroad. “I used to complain practically daily but my mother always said ‘you will thank me one day’, and that I have for sure. Now, I have friends all over the world from all walks of life because I was able to meet so many people growing up.”

Miller is on schedule to graduate in the spring of 2023 after finishing the requirements for both the marketing and Chinese degrees. Before that, he intends to fly to Tawain to complete a capstone year as part of the Chinese Flagship Program’s capstone, and he hopes to secure an internship during his time there as well. As for students considering studying a language or are currently pursuing a language degree, Miller stresses the importance of genuinely being passionate about their field of study and only pursuing a language if their heart is truly invested in it. “Be interested in the language and culture and don’t just do it because it looks good on a resume,” he says. “If you aren’t interested, you will be bored easily and not retain any of the information, and studying a language should be because you want to learn it and use it in that language’s natural setting.”

~Written by Briana Ciceron