Senior Profiles

Hongda Jiang, '08, Double Major- International Affairs & Foreign Languages (Russian & Chinese)

Client Manager at Alinga Consulting Group in Moscow, Russia

Hongda came to Lewis & Clark in 2005, after serving in the US Army for four years (which included a brief deployment in the Middle East). In addition to his academic studies, he interned at the World Affairs Council of Oregon and later at Sinochem Corporation in Beijing. During his overseas study in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok he was accepted into a client management and marketing internship at Alinga. In Moscow, he hopes to accumulate unique and challenging work experiences, while improving his ability to speak Russian. This will help him to get into a good MBA program in a few years.

Besides short term professional and academic pursuits, Hongda hopes to do some traveling in the near term, when time permits. So far his list of "places to go" consists of North Korea (yes, Americans CAN visit), Kazakhstan, Bangladesh, India, Dubai, Iran, and Egypt."

Matthew Nelson '08 (Foreign Languages major: Russian & Spanish)

2008/9 J. William Fulbright Grant Recipient (Teaching Assistantship: Russia)

Unlike most students who start learning Russian in their freshman year, Matthew began taking Russian as a sophomore when he decided to major in Foreign Languages (he also studied Spanish). After only two semesters of Russian, Matthew left to travel for a month in Ukraine and then spent a semester studying in St. Petersburg where he enrolled in the language-intensive program. He soon achieved language proficiency which most students reach after two years of Russian and a semester-long overseas program. In his senior year Matthew was a conversation leader for first- year students of Russian and he assisted the Russian Professor in correcting student homework assignments. Matthew was awarded a Fulbright teaching assistantship to teach English and American culture in Russia during the 2008/9 academic year. He will be living in Novosibirsk and teaching at the Academy for Government Service.

Matthew's email address is mbnelson86@gmail.com. Please feel free to contact him with any questions about the Fulbright teaching assistantship. It is a really cool program and all students of Russian with an interest in teaching abroad are encouraged to apply.

You can also check out his blog at mattinsiberia.wordpress.com to read about his experiences!

Amanda Pope '08 (International Affairs major, Russian minor)

Amanda is a graduate student at the Graduate School of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (Russian as a language of focus)

Officially, Amanda was a Russian minor, but she took as many Russian courses as it was usually expected from a major. In addition, she contributed to the quality of the Russian Program in so many ways, serving as a departmental representative on the Student Academic Affairs Board, leading first-year Russian conversation group discussions, organizing the Eastern European contribution at the traditional International Fair at Lewis & Clark, tutoring students of Russian and taking an active part in almost all Russian Club activities.

In September Amanda began her graduate studies at the Graduate School of International Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (Russian as a language of focus) for which she received a full financial support.

Recently Amanda wrote to us: "I was surprised at how easy it was to adjust to graduate school, mainly because I think that professors at LC are much more demanding than at other undergraduate schools (at least that is the opinion of my classmates). The main difficulty that I have had is being so much younger than my classmates. This does not bother me so much, but some of my classmates have been somewhat judgmental about my abilities.

I decided to specialize in conflict resolution and international negotiation, which is drawing on my experience as an RA. There is a lot of psychology mixed in with international relations, so I am in heaven.

Easily, my favorite course is Russian. I am being exposed to A LOT of new vocabulary (our first week we discussed nuclear nonproliferation) and leading the 101/102 conversation courses last year helped me solidify grammar."