Welcome New Chinese Students

Welcome New Students in the Airport

CSLP members have been working really hard as the group leaders to help our new international students settle down at Missouri State University. 

You might see our CSLP members a lot in the airport during the whole summer. Yes, that's only a beginning. Our CSLP members went to airport to welcome our new students, helped them get their luggage, checked in the temporary house, finished MSU check-in process, took them a campus tour and beyond that, they provided their assistance to our new students to get their cell phone service, find apartment, and open bank accounts. The goal of the whole team was to help the new students settle down at MSU before school started and have a smooth transition.

During the whole summer, CSLP members had done excellent work. So if you see some of them on campus, please feel free to talk to them. And they deserve a big thanks.

First Week Worshop Recap and Summary

First Week Workshop Picture

Thanks to the guest speakers and CSLP members for attending the first-week workshop. Here are the recap and summary in order to lead the discuss and help CSLP members do the reflection:

1. Co-curricular transcript program:
Besides your official academic transcript, you can have another OFFICIAL transcripts recording your on campus activities and community activities. It could be a great recommendation letter for your future graduate school study and employment. You can input your activities including CSLP activities to the transcript through "My Missouri State" and "Campus Link"

2. Volunteer programs:
You can get more involved in the community services through Alternative Spring Break, Alternative Fall break through the volunteers programs. You can find more programs on their website: www.missouristate.edu/volunteer

3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:
Here are the 7 Habits:

• Private Victory:
  
  1. Be Proactive: Sometimes we complain that we are always busy. But when we stop and think about it, it might because that we are always REACTING. We make our "Important and Urgent" Block too FULL. But if we do proactive, we should be able to make this block smaller but make the "Important but not urgent" block bigger, which would make us more efficient and effective.
  2. Begin with the End in Mind
  3. Put first things first

Notes: These three aspects are closely related together. When we begin with the end in mind and have the big picture about our future in mind, then we will know what things are more important to us. So you will do "Put First Thing First!", When you put first thing first, then you will do proactive as well.

• Public Victory:
  
  1. Think WinWin
  2. Seek First to Understand Then to be understood
  3. Synergies

• Sharpen the Saw: We should balance our life. We need to plan some private time for ourselves to read books, think about future and know what parts you should focus on for your future dream.

4. Effective online tools:

• Dropbox: Share your documents online and pull them out at anywhere you need them. www.dropbox.com
• Doodle: tool to help you schedule the group meetings and group events www.doodle.com
• Evernote: make notes and share notes online and can be searchable, and make your work more organized. www.evernotes.com
• Lindedin: Social work for your professional networks and job searching.

Please leave your comments and any reflection in the discussion box.

First Day Workshop Schedule on June 5th

Time           Topics                                                                           Guest Speaker

1:-1:50pm	Co-Curricular Transcripts and campus engagement	Kelli Farris
2-2:50pm	Volunteer and get involved in communities	Patrick Grayshaw
3-3:50pm	The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Time Management	Shannon McMurtrey
4-4:50pm	Study and Work more Efficiently -Dropbox, and other online tools	Chris Lynn
6pm	Mini Golf Night

Welcome

Peng invited me to co-author this blog and contribute to the Chinese Student Leadership Program (CSLP).  I'm Christopher D. Lynn. I focus on helping international students develop into leaders in their chosen career fields.  You can find out more about me at ChristopherDLynn.com.

You are joining a valuable experience by being a part of the CSLP.

Peng has organized several MSU leaders to work with you as you seek to grow as a leader. These leaders offer years of wisdom and you get to be a part of a group that will learn together.

Peng invited me to share about cloud-based productivity tools and effective use of social media as a leader.  I am excited to share with you from my own experience starting tomorrow at the first CSLP meeting.

We look forward to the CSLP blog becoming a community for you as you learn about effective leadership. Becoming an effective leader doesn't just include learning but also teaching others. We invite you to share as you're learning more about how to lead better.

I look forward to your comments and meeting each one of you!

- Chris

Megan's Testimony of Studying in MSU

     Hi, my name is Sai Zhang (Megan). I have been here in MSU since the August 4th, 2012. As an exchange student from Xi'an International Studies University (XISU), my initial purpose is just try the different  study experience in a foreign country and improve my speaking English because I am a language study students.

     However after 2 semester's living and studying in MSU I surprisingly find that my field of vision has been opened and I am  becoming a more independent person. The most important thing for me during almost one year study here is that I do find my passion and interest in our Communication Department. As an English majored senior student from China, I really meet a lot of challenges in studying about the courses like Interpersonal Relationship, Mediation and Negotiation and Communication Internship. English is not my mother tongue and I need to spend more time than my classmates to prepare the presentation and write the long papers. The first semester is really harsh for me. I always spend all day in the library to read the thick textbooks and prepare the speaking. Even though I prepare a lot before the class, I still feel very nervous when I do the facilitation or the public speaking in front of  the whole class. My instructors give me all kinds of help during my "harsh time". They always encourage me to express myself freely and recommend me lots of information about the fields of conflicts where I really interested in. They still help me to do the internship and let me learn many new things I never have chance to learn and see in China. I always feel grateful about their warmful help and gentle reminds. Now I have already been admitted by the Graduate School and will start my new journey in MSU for another 2 years!
   
   Office of China Programs also plays an important role to help me fulfill my academic goal. All the staffs of this office are all like my best friends that they always spare no effort to help me solve all kinds of problems both in living and studying. Now I am so happy to join in the CSLP to help more Chinese students and  also learn a lot from this leadership improving program!

  

Welcome to CSLP blog!

Welcome to our Chinese Student Leadership Program!

      This newborn program is designed and organized by the office of China Programs at Missouri State University. The aim of our program is trying  to help Chinese students develop their on-campus leadership through all kinds of activities, such as, leadership workshops, volunteer services, on-campus office tour, and welcome events for incoming Chinese students.  This program can also  help the Chinese student leaders to lead other Chinese students to get more involved on campus or in the local community, so our Chinese students could be more importantly to be successful outside of classroom.
     
     Now we already have 8 members join in our CSLP family as Chinese leaders. We will be glad to share the details and pictures about our activities recently. We will also post our reflection of attending those self-improved program. Keep contact with us and join in our blog to find your passion! We really welcome all the new voice here!