Yingwen. Fang

My name is Yingwen Fang. I grew up in China and moved to the United States in April of 2010. I attended the University of Guangzhou in Guangzhou, China from September 1999 to July 2002. I graduated in July 2002 (GPA 3.1) with an associate’s degree in Environmental Art Design. After graduating from college, I accepted a position with Hush Puppies in the marketing department. As my educational background was in Environmental Art Design and not marketing, I had to learn quickly and adapt to new challenges on the job, to a much greater extent than some of my coworkers who had a college education in marketing. My hard work paid off, and I was promoted to marketing manager. I was happy with my job and loved working in marketing, but I felt that without a degree in marketing job I would not be able to compete for higher level positions in the company. I knew then that I was determined to go back to college. It would be almost impossible for a 29-year-old woman to return to college in China. My determination to go back to college came with me to the United States. My educational goals are first to complete a bachelor’s degree at Pacific Lutheran University in business with a marketing focus and then to apply for entry into a related graduate program. I feel that my background working as a marketing manager in China will allow me to contribute real world experiences to my academic course of study and share valuable lessons with my fellow students in the program. After I graduate, I would like to work in international business and work to expand collaboration opportunities between American and Chinese companies by improving communication and marketing.
I began taking business degree transfer classes at Green River Community College (GRCC) in January 2011. I received the Green River Community College Foundation Scholarship for two years in a row. My current GPA was 3.55, and I had worked hard to do my best in all my classes. And then, I transferred to Pacific Lutheran University to continue my bachelor’s degree.
Learning the English language has been a challenge I have worked hard to overcome while living in the United States for the last three years. I attended English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) Level 5 first. ESOL turned out to be a comfortable place for me to start because the students in this program were also immigrants. When I finished the ESOL program, I took the Compass Test, and my test scores placed me in Reading 94, Writing 60 and Math 72. I felt very nervous because now I had to study with all the students who grew up in the United States. I was worried that all of the American students would be able to understand the class instruction and assignments much easier than I would. I had to work very hard in my first classes at GRCC. I learned and improved so much in GRCC; I had been given the opportunity to tutor some other international students in accounting, writing, and math to help them with their second chance in GRCC.
In September 2014, I finally transferred to Pacific Lutheran University to continue my Business Marketing academic career. I also got Saugen scholarship for two years in PLU. However, things were not always on your way. Two weeks before my finals, I suddenly had 105F° fever. I went to emergency room, and the doctors found out my liver, and gallbladder had an infection, and they had to do a minimally invasive surgery to remove my gallbladder. Unfortunately, the doctor made an error on my surgery. I went into a septic shock, causing my kidneys and liver fail. Also, my heart failure, and I had a stroke. Moreover, I got gangrene toes and went deaf in my right ear. After I stayed in hospital three months, I still had to have kidney dialysis for four months and stayed in a wheelchair for half year. All the issues took me one year to recover. Because of my whole issues, I had to delay my graduation from PLU one year. Now, I am back to a full-time student with a GPA of 3.33. I am planning to graduate in May 2017.