Chinese Studies Grad Student Receives Nationally Competitive Critical Language Scholarship


Andy Neilson

Andrew Neilson is a CLASS graduate student in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages specializing in teaching Chinese as a second language. He hopes to teach Mandarin at the high school level, thereby inspiring students to learn about different languages and cultures in order to become effective world citizens and build cultural bridges. In addition to Chinese, Neilson enjoys studying the Middle East as well as the Arabic and Persian languages. While on CLS during the summer of 2018, he will be immersed in all of these cultures as he pursues his Chinese studies in the ancient Silk Road city of Xi’an.

Neilson will be studying at Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China, in the fall. He aspires to teach Mandarin at the high school level, thereby inspiring students to learn about different languages and cultures in order to become effective world citizens and build cultural bridges.

“I think I died about ten times and came back to life all in the span of five minutes,” says Neilson, describing how he felt when he heard the news that he’d won the scholarship. “Chinese requires a lifetime of continued study. It’s not something you just learn in four years and say, ‘I’m done!’ You’re never done.”

He says he’s always found China fascinating and mysterious, but never thought an outsider could learn the language. “Eventually I was surprised to learn that one of my favorite actresses, Mira Sorvino, learned it in college,” Neilson explains. “So I was inspired to take classes while I was at UT’s film school. It turns out I was hopelessly terrible at filmmaking but excelled in Mandarin. I studied abroad and continued to study it on my own after college, and it became an addiction.”

He feels it’s very important for people to learn another language, especially these days. “During a difficult economic period when I couldn’t even land a job interview, knowing Chinese was the only reason I started to get jobs,” states Neilson. “Learning another language has saved my life in various ways.”

The Chinese Studies Program at UH, led by professor and director Xiaohong Sharon Wen, offers both a major and a minor in Chinese Studies. In addition, the program provides a faculty-led Summer Study Abroad Program, and four scholarship opportunities.