Thanita is one of our students from Thailand. She is going to start her Master’s Degree at Northeastern University in the spring. She has a teaching license in education, but now wants to pursue a master’s in Corporate and Organizational Communication.
When I was 10 years old, I received a very bad grade in English, which made me feel miserable. I decided I wanted to improve my grade and get better in English. It became important to me to get good at English. I thought that If I had more contact with people in English, I would get better at communicating. I asked my mom if I could go out and meet people at the Christian church to talk with them. In fact, this is where I got an American accent. My mom was and is always very encouraging and lets me do what I need to do to improve my English, but she can’t really speak English at all.
Like most people, I found being a student very challenging. Some of my teachers only wanted to teach to the “smart” kids and didn’t care about the others so I felt frustrated a lot of the time. However, there was one special teacher who encouraged me and gave me hope and taught me that everyone mattered. I was really inspired by her and I wanted to become a teacher like her and inspire others.
It’s made me more independent. I can’t rely on anyone else and I have to do things for myself now such as manage my time and money. Also, I have become more open-minded to new cultures and I have learned how to speak my mind. And, of course, my English has improved a lot!
I’m nervous and excited about starting at Northeastern next semester because doing a master’s in English is going to be very challenging. But in the future, after I graduate from Northeastern, I’m not sure exactly what kind of job I want to get, but it will have to do with communication technology, and it will be in social media in some capacity.
