Updated: March 16, 2023
Only a few months after graduating from Cal, Alexandra Feldman (Political Economy, ’22) will be heading to Peking University to start an M.A. program in China Studies as fully funded Yenching Academy Scholar. She will join an interdisciplinary cohort of 120 other students from around the world who are interested in thinking about China – past, present, and future – from both Chinese and international perspectives.
Alexandra, a native of Southern California, first visited Beijing during a four-week Chinese language immersion program after her sophomore year in high school and has continued studying both Chinese and Chinese literature at Cal, while majoring in Political Economy. Alexandra, a Regents’ Scholar, participated in several URAP projects on topics varying from cognition and climate change to American exceptionalism.
At Berkeley, Alexandra became the Head News Editor for the Daily Californian and began writing poetry and short stories. As a Literature and Culture student at the Yenching Academy, she plans to explore the differences between the Chinese fantasy genre and Western fantasies, looking specifically at the sociopolitical dimension of fantasy. Her eventual goal is to become a writer and scholar engaged with both China and the U.S.
Alexandra has advice to students thinking of applying to Yenching Academy or other competitive scholarship programs: talk with professors in office hours all along the way for advice and to brainstorm about the future.
For more information about this opportunity, visit the Yenching Academy website and https://scholarships.berkeley.edu/yenching-scholars/.