Time flies, on September 15th, I came to the 13th CHECK-IT opening ceremony. Everything was new to me. All the Dutch boys and girls looked pretty different from us, they talked in fluent English, they all wore suits and shook hands with us. I felt excited and upset at that time, I knew there would be a big challenge waiting for me.

What I thought at first is indeed right. In the beginning, it was tough. I chose a special project that required our group to be at the company in Jimei, on the mainland, every day to complete our work. It is quite far for me, and what was even more difficult is that I would be separated from other Chinese students.

Sure, I thought it was not really a big problem later. I could handle this if I got up a bit early every morning, and I needed some chances to talk more with my Dutch colleagues. I thought in this way, so I chose to go to try.

However, when going to the company the first time, it was harder than I thought. In the beginning, I complained a lot about this to friends and teachers, I didn’t want to waste time and wanted to make some changes. That was a very tough time, not only because of this but also because of my poor spoken English.

But unhappiness passed later. The Dutch boys in my group were friendly and liked talking. I heard a lot of funny things from them, especially about cultural differences between our two countries. I felt quite amazing! It was my first time to know such real feelings about China from foreigners, and it was also the first time to know what Holland is like in Dutch people’s view. I was interested in this, and became happier and happier to go to the company.

In work, they also helped me in UI design and gave me much useful advice about this. They told me a lot about their ideas about design, and we would discuss what was good and what could be done better. I also got more and more work!! I searched for a lot of excellent designs on the Internet. Before this, I never had time to think about what is good design and what isn’t, why this should be put here and what details are useful. I tried different styles and benefited a lot!

All in all, I liked the time with the Dutch students. When I changed my mind to enjoy the experience, I felt everything became beautiful and happy. In a word, it’s been a rollercoaster, but I learned a lot and am very grateful for my time at CHECK-IT.

Yang Yuan – CHECK-IT 13