Case Study A - Yanjie Ba

Yanjie has certainly enjoyed her time in the West of Ireland, so much so that she is currently pursuing her second qualification at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT). She originally arrived in 2006 as part of an exchange agreement with Nanchang University. After completing the final year of her Honours Bachelor of Business, she decided to stay on and is currently half way through the BA in Hotel and Catering Management.

Why the second degree? Yanjie admits to having found the topic of her first degree ‘kind of boring’ – well she did specialise in accountancy! Nevertheless, she knows those financial skills will certainly be useful when she graduates from her current course and achieves her aim of working in hotel management.

Aside from mental skills such as finance and strategy however, running a hotel also requires a lot of practical skills. Luckily Yanjie enjoys the ‘hands-on’ side of things, and particularly likes the practical aspects of the course such as her kitchen-based classes.

Away from college, the native of Inner Mongolia is taken with the very relaxed pace of life in the famously student-friendly Galway City. She finds the people ‘friendly and lovely’ and particularly enjoys the ‘quietness’ afforded by the laidback lifestyle. She has also taken trips to the cities of Limerick, Belfast and Dublin, and also to the spectacular Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland’s top attractions.

So what advice does Yanjie have for fellow Chinese thinking of coming to Ireland? Well she lives in the GMIT student village and believes that the ‘very clean and convenient’ accommodation is ideal for foreign students, and although the many Chinese restaurants may not quite recapture the flavours of home, they are still pretty good!