Program Learning Outcomes: Chinese Major

Chinese majors, upon satisfactory completion of the degree, will have realized the following outcomes in the areas listed below:
 

Language

• Achieved advanced proficiency in speaking, listening, and reading Mandarin Chinese, and high-intermediate proficiency in writing Mandarin Chinese.

• Learned how to use Chinese to navigate diverse situations in everyday and professional settings.

• Achieved a basic understanding of the grammar and vocabulary of Classical Chinese, and the ability to read more challenging texts with the assistance of a dictionary.
   

Literature and Culture

• Acquired research, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills through engaging in interdisciplinary, cross-linguistic, cross-cultural, and comparative literary and historical analyses.

• Learned to engage with specific time periods, genres, traditions, or issues in Chinese culture through close analysis of primary and secondary sources, both in the original and in translation.

• Become familiar with basic bibliographic skills and protocols for conducting research on Chinese-related topics, including how to identify, assess, and interpret primary and secondary textual, audio-visual, and online sources.

• Produced an original, persuasive, coherent, and substantial work of scholarship (the Senior Thesis), in which one has: 

  • defined a significant research topic in Chinese literature and culture based on one’s intellectual interests and existing scholarship; 

  • developed and pursued a rigorous methodology appropriate to that research topic; 

  • analyzed primary sources through close readings and comparative analysis; 

  • engaged with (sometimes in the form of extensive translation) primary and secondary sources in the original Chinese; 

  • undertaken an independent and sustained investigation of a topic with the support of an advisor; 

  • successfully presented, discussed, and defended one’s work orally in front of a committee of Reed faculty
     

Community

• Learned to use one’s Chinese language to interact and collaborate with members of local and international Chinese-speaking communities

• Cultivated relations with peers and faculty from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds