Anthony Dodge is one of the best students of Chinese in the world. We know that because he won a first prize in the international Chinese language competition, Chinese Bridge: Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign College Students, held in China this summer. One of 123 students from seventy-seven countries, Anthony was the only student from United States to be a top-ten finalist. The month-long competition sponsored by the Chinese government was in four stages, each of which was a nationally broadcast television program. These included speeches, talent contests (Anthony played the cello and the Chinese erhu), acting in short plays, live performances, and even a scavenger hunt in an amusement park (in which Anthony also came in first).
Anthony began his Chinese studies in ALL as a freshman, and completed four years of language instruction with us, including two short study-abroads. He graduated in May and is now studying Chinese literature at Nanjing University with a scholarship from the Confucius Institute. After that he hopes to pursue an MBA at Tsinghua University in Beijing--as a Chinese Bridge first prize winner, he already has a scholarship to do so!
Ling Wang, Director of Instruction for Chinese program, told Anthony "Your great achievements will inspire all Chinese-language learners at UMN to become enthusiastic and motivated students."
