Future for motivated student

[kidsdad2]

My highly-motivated mature high school freshman son (Caucasian) has been teaching himself Mandarin for several months, and he'll also be attending a month-long Chinese immersion program here in Minnesota this summer. He's interested in environmental issues and seems to enjoy history and politics. Presuming he keeps these interests up, what colleges would be worth looking into, and what kind of directions could he go with this in the long run? Definitely wants to go to China. From what he sees and hears, he's leaning towards a smaller school, preferably in the Midwest or West. (Other interests - hunting, almost black belt in TaeKwonDo, varsity letters in nordic skiing, cross-country running, and track)

[jz87]

that's pretty motivated, I didn't take foreign language seriously at all in high school. If he's looking toward west/midwest I don't really know much (I'm from the east so that's all I know) about specific colleges but I'd say look into Washington University in St. Louis (is that a small school?) I heard they have a pretty good Asian studies department from my Japanese professors.

[tapestrybabe]

My highly-motivated mature high school freshman son (Caucasian) has been teaching himself Mandarin for several months, and he'll also be attending a month-long Chinese immersion program here in Minnesota this summer. He's interested in environmental issues and seems to enjoy history and politics. Presuming he keeps these interests up, what colleges would be worth looking into, and what kind of directions could he go with this in the long run? Definitely wants to go to China. From what he sees and hears, he's leaning towards a smaller school, preferably in the Midwest or West. (Other interests - hunting, almost black belt in TaeKwonDo, varsity letters in nordic skiing, cross-country running, and track)

i agree with the person above... that does sound really motivated... and i think its great when ppl show signs of wanting to learn such cultures outside of their own... and i think its really neat that your son shows such an interest in chinese culture, especially at a young age he's at... which i think its even neater reading about him wanting to immerse himself in such a program... and even wanting to visit china and such... it seems like its a true, natural interest for him... as opposed to someone being forced into learning such thing...

altho taekwondo is a korean martial art form...
but i guess thats why you included that under his OTHEr interests tho...

[sinisterpanda]

Not to be the downer, but interests change...drastically sometimes.

[nola]

Make sure he paces himself or he can burnout. How about UMich? They have one of the best Chinese studies, language and literature departments.

[jz87]

UMich is not a small school. Of course you can find good Chinese departments in large universities, but he wants to go to a small liberal arts school, that's the challenge.