About myself

Hello everyone, my name is Shan Zhang, you can call me Shan. I am from China, Shanxi Province, and Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi, which is homologous to Newcastle because they used to have plenty of coal resources.

When I was a little girl, I was often asked the question: What does your name mean? At that time, I would always say that my parents went through the dictionary and decided randomly. The common combination of this word in Chinese is “Shanhu”, which means marine life “coral”. Does it make my name easy to remember?

I am currently studying for the Master of International Development and Education. But in my undergraduate studies, I majored in public administration (In our school, the major is a bachelor degree in management, and the main research content is the administration of the political direction of the government, which is different from administration in the law degree). It doesn’t sound like there is any obvious relationship between the two, does it? But then to some extent, the research methods are interrelated, and we have studied: principles and methods of social investigation, principles of statistics, principles of management science and e-government (which are closely related to the educational research we are studying at this stage).

Different from other fresh graduates, I had two years of full-time work experience, and a few months of part-time job. They were customer representative for YiLi(A dairy company) and English instructor for elementary school respectively. During the full-time period, most of the work was related to e-commerce. (The development of the Internet and information technology has influenced all aspects of social life.) And the part-time experience as an elementary school English instructor also planted the seed in my heart that I want to be a teacher.

I like running, listening to music and traveling, all of which make me feel alive. I recently joined a dance club and plan to pick up my childhood love of dance again and learn to dance with everyone.

I like sunny days and the feeling of the sun shining on me, which makes my whole person energetic. So on sunny days, I always like to go to the park, climb the mountain, and feel the warmth brought by the sun. When I sit in the park on a sunny day, I look at the people walking and always wonder where they are going later, whether they will have a leisurely afternoon tea time, or whether they will rush home to bring their children. All these simple things make me feel the joy and warmth of life. So yeah, hopefully there will be fewer rainy days in Newcastle!