Junzuo Ren

 

Hometown: Beijing, China

 

Major: Educational Leadership & Policy; Training & Development Certificate; Student Affairs Certificate

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Languages: Mandarin, English

 

Hobbies: Hiking, snowboarding, listening to music, traveling, learning new cultures, hanging out with friends.

 

Biography: My name is Junzuo Ren and I was born and raised in Beijing, China. I had a bachelor’s degree in English in China, and this ignited my curiosity to keep learning this language as well as the American culture since I was in college. After graduation from college, I became an English teacher in an elementary school in Beijing for four years. In my fourth year of teaching, I had an opportunity to go to Dallas, Texas to teach Chinese as an exchange teacher.  This has opened a door for me to immerse in American culture and I’ve been excited about how the two different cultures lead me to.  At the same time, I encountered some challenges in terms of teaching at that time, so I decided to pursue a higher degree.

 

I got to visit Portland a couple of times when I was in Dallas and I fell in love with the city, or Oregon in general. I love the nature and how easy it is to do outdoor activities here. I started with learning academic English in IELP at PSU in 2018 and spent a little bit of time exploring graduate programs before I committed to the one that I would be passionate about. I ended up taking one core class in the PACE program as a postbaccalaureate student in spring 2019 and that made me decide to apply for Educational Leadership & Policy program. As an international student who is also working with a lot of international students in IELP, I know exactly the pain that international students are going through when they study abroad, and I am dedicated to support them to navigate the system better and easier.

 

I am so honored to be a member of ICSP for this academic year and I am looking forward to sharing my culture with you in the future as well as learning new culture.