Student Testimonial: Jiayi

Jiayi's Bio: I am a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scarborough, double majoring in Mathematics and Statistics with a minor in Economics. I participated in the 2025 Beijing Summer Abroad Program and is expected to graduate in 2026.

Jiayi gave a thoughtful and compelling testimonial on her experiences in the Beijing 2025 Summer Abroad program. This program helped her truly reflect on her own academic journey and allowed her to experience transformative growth. 

Jiayi's testimonial:

Participating in the Summer Abroad Beijing program has truly been one of the most meaningful and unforgettable experiences of my undergraduate years. As a student majoring in Mathematics and Statistics, most of my coursework has been very quantitative and technical. This program gave me a rare and valuable opportunity to step outside of my usual academic comfort zone and engage deeply with topics I had previously only seen from a distance—like social inequality, policy, and the lived experiences behind the data.

Throughout the course, both Professor Zhang and Professor Tat created an incredibly rich and thoughtful learning environment. Professor Zhang’s lectures helped me see how macro-level policies intersect with people's lived experiences — in areas like family, marriage, migration, and inequality — while Professor Tat’s sessions offered deeply reflective and personal perspectives on identity, culture, and the ways individuals navigate broader structures. I constantly found myself thinking about how these two lenses — the structural and the personal — enrich and complement each other. Their guidance not only deepened my academic understanding, but also challenged me to think in ways I hadn’t before.

One of the most vivid memories for me was our visit to the nursing home in Beijing. Seeing how class differences shape the way people experience aging gave me a much more personal and emotional understanding of social stratification—something that’s often hard to fully grasp through numbers alone. I found myself constantly reflecting on how societal structures operate beneath the surface of everyday life, and how individual lives are shaped by larger economic and political forces.

Beyond the academic learning, what made this experience even more special were the people I shared it with. This program brought together students from different campuses, different fields of study, different cultural backgrounds, and different personalities. Each of my classmates had their own unique story, perspective, and energy. Getting to know them, learning from their insights, sharing meals, walking through the city together, and simply spending time talking about life allowed us to build genuine friendships that I truly treasure. I feel very lucky that this experience not only broadened my academic horizons, but also introduced me to a group of wonderful friends who made every moment in Beijing even more memorable.

This program has also helped me reflect on my own academic journey and future plans. In many ways, the topics we explored in class unexpectedly aligned with the questions I had been quietly thinking about for my future studies. The experience made me realize that I hope to someday combine my quantitative background with a deeper understanding of social issues, especially related to inequality and policy. In that sense, this course has offered me not just knowledge, but also clarity and encouragement for what may lie ahead.

If a friend asked me whether they should apply, I would tell them without hesitation: absolutely. You won’t just be learning from textbooks or lectures. You’ll be out there seeing things for yourself, meeting people, hearing stories that you’ll remember long after the program ends. And most importantly, you’ll grow—not just academically, but personally.

I feel deeply grateful to both Professor Zhang and Professor Tat for their dedication, their thoughtful guidance, and the incredibly warm, interdisciplinary environment they created. The care they put into every lecture, discussion, and field visit truly shaped this experience into something far more meaningful than I had ever expected. This program has not only expanded my knowledge, but also touched my life in ways that I know will stay with me for a very long time.