Teaching Alumni: Best Thing I Ever Did!| 3 min read

It started when I was 18 and adamant I wasn’t going to go to university to do a degree. If anything I wanted to go to a musical theatre school and train to become a performer… But not yet! I was bored of being in education and wanted to do something different for a while. I ordered a gap year brochure and looked through all the various places available to me. I wasn’t really bothered which country I went to, all I knew is it had to be exciting，different and for the longest period of time I could afford! That’s when I decided to choose the trip to China to teach English! It was one of the cheapest trips for the longest period of time and I thought “why not?”.

I’m not sure what I expected China to be like but I definitely  didn’t expect that I would have as much fun as I did and keep coming back for more! Every day was exciting! I made so many new friends, learnt valuable skills and had the best time of my life! During my time in China I visited tourist attractions such as the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors, went to beach parties and many social events, climbed mountains and even ended up on a few tv shows. These were all things that I wouldn’t of been doing if I had stayed at home in the UK.

Also, during my time in China I took particular interest in learning the language. During my time in China I tried to pick up useful phrases and words to help me get by and really enjoyed doing so. By the time I got back from China, my whole education and future plans had changed dramatically, I couldn’t think of anything worse than studying musical theatre, instead I wanted to study Chinese!

I signed up to study Chinese at a UK University and I am still finishing my degree! I have plans to head back to China very soon to help practice my language skills and ultimately continue to learn more. I absolutely love studying Chinese and I look forward to the opportunities speaking Chinese will bring! Studying Chinese is now my life, and I hope one day I can use my language skills and work for an international company! I’ll leave the musical theatre to the professionals!

Best thing I ever did!

Victoria Kajrys, a teaching intern from Teach & Travel China 2012, currently studying at Dalarna University of Sweden.