When I was at high school, I have already known that my future career might be related to different languages, so I was planning to study in Minsk (the capital of Belarus) as a Russian-English translator. However, 1 year before graduating from the high school, free Chinese language courses were set up there, and I decided to try my language possibilities. Unexpectedly for everyone (including myself) I made progress in Chinese day by day, and I literally fell in love with it from the first hieroglyph, so after six months before the entrance exams to the university I decided that my future life would definitely be connected with the Chinese language and its culture.

After enrollment to the Minsk State Linguistic University for the major of Chinese-English translation, I realized that this was not enough for me, because deeply in my heart I wanted to go to China and see all the diverse Chinese culture in my own eyes. So in 2017 I flew straight to Asia for the first time in my life, arriving in Shanghai for a 1-year language course in Shanghai Normal University.

Shanghai is the best city for living and developing (in my opinion), there is something here that attracts and makes you fall in love with this city! During my bachelor studies, I participated in many events, for example, I represented my university at the event dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (建党百年文艺汇演活动).

When it came time to thinking about my major of master's degree, I knew that it would be related to the media/cultural industry/communications, so I decided to join the new media studies program in School of Media and Communication in Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and I never regretted this decision.

Here I discovered the real possibilities of this discipline. Since the beginning of my master studies, I have participated in many events and international conferences organized by SJTU, while developing my skills of video-making etc. Thanks to the support of my thesis supervisor, professor Li Kanghua, and my classmates I created my video account in Xiaohonshu app, where I mainly share daily life of myself as a foreign student in SJTU, I also talk there about the culture of Belarus and make useful videos about learning Russian language.

One of such videos took the 2nd place in the competition called “Generation Z and the Spring Festival in Shanghai” (Z世代青年学生讲好上海故事). Moreover, this month I was invited to be one of the hosts on the China Global Television Network (CGTN International) for the debate in the metaverse called “Whats the Talk”, I really appreciate this experience, a lot of unforgettable impressions!

During my last visit to the Shanghai Museum at the exhibition “The Making of China” ("何以中国"), I was interviewed by journalists of the news channels from Shanghai Observer, Yunnan Net, Huasheng Online and others, after all the journalist from the Chinanews channel recorded a short video about me and released it in the news.

During my spare time, in addition to studying social networks and other media space, I also write some research papers, and this summer I have already sent one of my research papers to the “Media Forum” periodical.

The Master's degree at Shanghai Jiaotong University gives me a lot of opportunities to realize and develop myself. Only 1.5 years left before my graduation from the SJTU, I am really grateful for all the opportunities that SJTU gave me, and I can't wait to see what will happen next!