St. George’s Armitage headed to college in China
Tristan Armitage had already studied abroad far more than the average college graduate when his family began looking for a private school for his freshman year of high school.
“My mother is in the Air Force, and she was stationed in Japan,” the St. George’s School senior said. “I spent six years in the Japanese school system through elementary school. While I was there I came to enjoy learning about other cultures and other languages as well.”
Armitage and his family looked at several private schools, but when he saw that St. George’s listed Chinese as a foreign language option, he was sold. Four years of study hasn’t sated his interest in either the country or the language.
“I was listening to NPR and there was a story about a new school starting in Shanghai – a branch campus of New York University,” he said. “I immediately wanted to know more and I started looking into it. It was just what I wanted and I applied for early admission and got in in early December.”
New York University-Shanghai is about to complete its first year of operation in the heart of one of the world’s largest cities, and when the class of 2018 arrives in mid-August to begin two weeks of orientation before the official start of classes, there will be a newly completed campus located in the heart of the city’s financial district.
“Shanghai is the largest city in the world by population,” Armitage said. “There are 25 million people living in the city – that’s eight times larger than New York City.”
The school flew its incoming freshman class to Shanghai in early April to show them the campus.
“I discovered that my class will be made up of students from around the world,” Armitage said. “There will be students from Germany, England, Pakistan, India – all over the world. We make up half of the incoming class. The other half will be from mainland China – we didn’t get to meet them because they’re all still in school. But each of us will be paired with a Chinese student as a roommate. It’s exciting.”
Armitage said he’s a little unsure what he’ll concentrate his studies in once he gets there, but he’s leaning toward a course in global Chinese studies – a curriculum designed specifically for NYU-Shanghai that delves into how China fits into the modern world.
“There are a number of electives that I can choose, and of course I’ll continue to study the language,” he said. “I’m thinking that I’ll want to minor in something a little more traditional – either business or computer science. I’m interested in both, but not enough to want to major in either one.”
Meanwhile, Armitage has focused on completing a slate of AP classes at St. George’s. Then he has a speech to write.
“At St. George’s we don’t rank students,” he said. “There is no valedictorian, so the class votes on who they’d like to have as a commencement speaker. I was honored that they chose me.”
It’s not a surprise choice. Armitage is a National Merit Commended Scholar and represented St. George’s as a Spokane Scholar in world languages.
“I have an idea what I want to say, but I haven’t written anything yet,” he said in early May. “Once I get my AP classes out of the way, I’ll sit down and write the speech.”