Connection: Chinese Students Choose WSU

Washington State University and the University of Washington are among the country’s top schools for enrollment of Chinese students.

Last year, 136 students from China blended into WSU’s student body. Japan, with 184, was the only foreign country with more students at the school.

Two years ago, Ying Du traded life in ChangChun, a large city in northeast China, for a small-town experience in Pullman. She’s majoring in civil engineering.

“Studying abroad has always been a fantastic idea for me,” she said. Du chose the United States because of the technology available here and the freedom she’d have in her studies. She wanted to explore a country very different from her own as well as improve her English language skills.

She liked the reputation of WSU’s civil engineering department, where she has a scholarship as a research assistant. She’s now participating in a project looking at how wood-frame structures react to earthquakes.

A bonus is that her sister graduated from WSU’s computer science department and now works in the school’s IT technology lab. Du values living close to her sister.

Watching the seasons pass, she has grown fond of the region. Du and her boyfriend go hiking and fishing, and she loves visiting the Snake River. “I enjoy the life in Pullman,” she said. “The perfect weather in summer gives me the opportunity to go outdoors and enjoy the nature.”

Du isn’t sure what she’ll do after she graduates. She said maybe she would work in the United States for a while.

Whatever she decides to do, “I will never forget this part of my life,” she said.

Though students from China are in nearly all of the university’s deparments, the majority come for the sciences, said Uta Hutnak, assistant director of WSU’s international programs.

The school keeps track of the students while they’re enrolled, but “after they leave, we don’t know,” Hutnak said. “Eventually most foreign students go back to their home countries, though.”