Alumni Updates: Chinese

Adams, Christopher (Class of 2008) Christopher is currently completing a master's degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is writing a thesis on the popular press in Republican-era China.
Ammirati, Megan (Class of 2010) Megan graduated with majors in Chinese and English (High Honors). She is currently working towards a Ph.D in Comparative Literature with a focus on modern Chinese drama at the University of California, Davis.
Dienstman, Allie (Class of 2010) Allie is currently working with ESL students and based in the Philadelphia area.
Donehey, John (Class of 2010) John spent the summer at the American Dance Festival at Duke University and performed as Tony in the mainstage production of West Side Story Suite while there. He is currently working as a free lance dancer in NYC and lives in Brooklyn.
Kamensky, John (Class of 2009) John describes his travels and studies of the past year: "After completing a Chinese major at the College of William and Mary, including a summer and a semester studying abroad in Beijing, I was awarded the Chinese Government Scholarship. Through this scholarship, I was able to study Mandarin for two semesters at Sichuan University in Chengdu. Sichuan Province was very enjoyable -- the spicy cuisine there is famous across China, and I even picked up a few phrases in the Sichuanese dialect. I was even able to find some excellent coaches in Wushu (Kung Fu), China's national art. I am currently enrolled in the Language Flagship program for Chinese, which aims to create working professionals in a target language. I spent the past summer in Qingdao participating in language training for this program, using Chinese to study Sino-American relations as viewed by mainland Chinese. For the next year I will be continuing my study of Chinese at Ohio State University, and plan to go back to China in order to research the process of urbanization in China the following year." Here are links to a "slightly exaggerated" Chinese article about his experience learning martial arts and his profile in the Language Flagship program.
Mawdsley, Devon (Class of 2009) Devon is finishing his master's in painting this coming spring at the University of Indiana. He plans to continue working in the art world, and hopes to teach painting.
Reed, Shannon (Class of 2009) Shannon has just begun her masters in the Regional Studies-East Asia Program at Harvard University. Her research focus will be modern Chinese literature, which she also worked on for her Honors thesis. "On a side note," she writes, "you and the other W&M professors may be intersted to know that 4 years of W&M Chinese is enough to help a student place out of Harvard's required language classes for the Master's!"