Blog #1 MY STORY - Major Turning Point

您好/Hello!

My name is Phoebe Ching Ting Lai; a citizen comes from a beautiful city, Hong Kong. I was raised and grown in Hong Kong for 18 years. At 18 years old, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and explore this amazing world!

Therefore, I decided to continue studying my degree in the United States. It was the first time I left my hometown and lived without my parents for more than four years.

I believe that communication is the way that we connect to others, and how the world connects to us. It allows us to explore and relate to other people and the varied cultures around the world, and it allows us to interact and be accepted the world over.

Through my travels, through Asia and Europe, I have developed a fascination with learning about other cultures and how they interact. With each successive trip, I would learn more, but I would always end the trip wanting to know so much more.

When I began my education in communications simply to pursue a career in public relations, I was not certain what I was taking on. What I did know was that I wished to pursue a career where I could interact with different cultures, where I could learn about people as individuals as well as culturally, and where I could apply that knowledge to help them communicate to the world.

To me, my major turning point would be when I joined the international club at college as a way to connect with other students, I started to realize that the role my education in communication would play, and my passion for the subject began to grow.

Through participating in the clubs "Learn the Cultures" event, where the goal was for each member to present information on their home country to introduce the others to your culture, it began to dawn on me that I was severely lacking knowledge of the world.

When communicating with the other students, I was able to fill some of the gaps in my personal knowledge base, and I became even more enthusiastic in my studies on the powers of communication.

Then I joined the Student Senate, where I was tasked with solving many issues through interacting with students and the program manager at the college.

Upon completing the program at CWU, it is my goal to take all of the skills that I will have gained and applied them to a rewarding career in the public relations sector. With that, I will be able to devote myself to the areas that I am most passionate about communicating and interacting with people, building relationships, and helping people.

It is my sincere belief that working as a public relations specialist is the path to achieving this goal, and I firmly believe that I am ready for that challenge!