“Choose what you love and love what you have chosen.” That was student Christine Liu.What she has chosen is the University of Virginia as the place to work on her graduate degree. I'm now at the University of Virginia and I choose UVA because it has a great reputation in the field which is accounting which I am currently studying. Another reason Christine wants to receive a degree in Accounting is she aspires to use her skills to help the less fortunate. “When I was in my fourth year in college, I was wondering if I could combine Economics and Accounting a little bit together because I felt the underprivileged they probably have no resources like we do and I recognized I can have my regular job and also a side job to help the underprivileged if they want to start up their business or if they have anything regarding a more in-depth level of the taxation field then I probably can up them,” she says.
“So that's why aside from my goal of being an Accountant I do want to help them so that is why I choose Accounting as my Master's degree.” Economics is what Christine received her undergraduate degree in and she says when it comes to the economy both here and back home in Taiwan the differences are clear, but so are the similarities. “The economy system in some way different, but overall how government react to the crisis and everything it is a little bit similar. Let's talk about the different sides. First, people here they really spend what they earn, but back home in Taiwan we tend to save a lot for example, if we are going to buy a house we will probably be prepared for the mortgage and see how much we can afford, but here it is more like the bank will take care of borrowing stuff and loans so that people would continue working and paying the mortgage, but not thinking about if one day they will probably be not able to afford it and the similar is the government reacted to the crisis very promptly and they also want to help out the less fortunate to reverse their unfortunate situation.” Christine says receiving an education in the United States gives her the foundation to go out in the work force and be successful. “I think the students here are more creative and that probably is because of the education here because from my experience attending school here, the students are very willing to share and any kind of ideas they have teachers will always say that its good,” she says.
“But back home in Taiwan it is not always the situation.If somebody wanted to share something a little bit less or it is not relevant to the topic we're talking about back home in Taiwan, the teacher is sometimes not very encouraging or sometimes will say we can talk about that later outside the class. So I feel the education here is really a foundation for this country to be prosperous.” In May of next year Christine will graduate from the University of Virginia. Following that her plans include... ‘I will get my master's degree first and then I wish that I will have some job training in the United States practicing Accounting in this field that is my short term goal maybe it will be for two to three years. Then I will probably go to a law school and get my LLM in taxation and then after three years I plan to go back to Taiwan.”
