{"id":3992,"date":"2019-05-20T16:15:02","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship-draft\/?p=3992"},"modified":"2019-06-13T12:23:30","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T16:23:30","slug":"samuel-browne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/samuel-browne\/","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Browne"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cStudying a language at URI is more than just a major. It is all about proficiency and being able to use the language.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his internship for Teknor Apex, in Suzhou, China, Samuel Browne looked forward to lunchtime when he could socialize with his Chinese colleagues. In Chinese, it is common to wish someone a good lunch by saying \u2018eat slowly\u2019. \u201cI happen to eat very slowly anyway,\u201d says Sam, \u201cso my friends would joke, \u2018Eat slowly\u2013but not too slowly because you have to go back to work sometime.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

For some students, just the idea of eating lunch in another country can be daunting, let alone going to work and learning the ins and outs of your profession. But for Sam, this was the highlight of the Chinese Language Flagship Program. He encourages students to embrace the idea. “The faculty really help students prepare, and the people you meet in China are welcoming and gracious to non native-speakers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Sam always knew he wanted to study math or science in college, but he also had a strong interest in languages, so the Chinese Language Flagship Program seemed like the best of both worlds. He enrolled in the International Engineering Program (IEP) with a focus in Chemical Engineering.<\/p>\n

Words of Wisdom<\/h1>

\u201cIf you have a passion for language, just lean into that,\u201d Sam says. \u201cIn the beginning, you have days when you feel like you are making progress, and times when you don\u2019t, and it\u2019s really important to stay encouraged.\u201d<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

\u201cStudying a language at URI is more than just a major. It is all about proficiency and being able to use the language,\u201d Sam says. \u201cOnce you get used to speaking Chinese every day, you connect the language to your daily academic life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes the strategy of speaking only Chinese accounts for the program\u2019s success and the more he progressed and learned the technical vocabulary specific to his field, the more opportunities he found to combine two seemingly different disciplines. \u201cMandarin has an inherent logic and structure that lends itself to engineering in interesting ways. For example, the word \u2018computer\u2019, combines the characters for \u2018electric\u2019 and \u2018brain\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sam went from no knowledge of Chinese to a superior level of proficiency in writing, reading, and speaking. \u201cMany of our students reach a superior level of proficiency in one or two of those areas,\u201d says Wayne He, director of the Chinese Language Flagship Program, \u201cbut it is a rare accomplishment to reach superior proficiency in all three modes of language.” Sam also received the prestigious Boren scholarship to study abroad and was awarded the 2018 President\u2019s Student Excellence Award. <\/p>\n

Sam doesn’t see his achievements as a solely academic pursuit. For him, religion and intercultural dialogue are closely bound and the ability to interact with kindness towards people who speak another language is a meaningful way to practice his faith. He now works as a process engineer in the Rhode Island location of Teknor Apex where he served on his internship. The international company allows him plenty of opportunities to use his Chinese\u2013especially during long, slow lunches. \u201cMany people who work in multinational companies speak English, so basic communication isn\u2019t a challenge,\u201d Sam says. \u201cBut communicating with people in their own native language means that you can communicate with them on a deeper level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam, now a process engineer in the Rhode Island location of Teknor Apex, says that many people speak English in multinational companies, so basic communication isn\u2019t a challenge, but knowing someone’s native language means that you can communicate on a deeper level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-profiles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3992"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4295,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3992\/revisions\/4295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/chineseflagship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}