Reasons for coming

The journey to this point had begun well over a year earlier in China with the initial decision to study abroad, and for some this had been a dream of many years’ standing. Their reasons were multilayered and warrant examination as they underlie the experience and provide insight into the perspectives by which the informants might measure it. Although all students mentioned work skills and greater employability as valued outcomes, several indicated that their idea of the main purpose of university education was far from utilitarian.

5.1.1.

The value of a university education

It offered the chance

• to develop intellectual openness:

the ability to accept new things and to use new things. If I have to stay at home I can don’t think. (Linda 1)

• to prepare for citizenship:

University just like a laboratory, you can do what you want before you go to society. Because, just like the photography and the camera taking.

Maybe if you do wrong in this part you can take another shot, but in society if you do something wrong you cannot take another part. So maybe just practise before I go out into society. (Li Ming 1)

• and to develop new skills, especially independence:

I think university is different with high school is one of important thing is independent. You should research the information by yourself. (Connor 1) To improve my ability to solve the problems. (Gao 1)

5.1.2.

The value of western education

Some qualities were particularly associated with a degree from a western university:

If you just graduate from university you won’t get a very high job, high paid job, but if you graduate from an overseas university, you might well get some higher than others that they studied in Chinese university. (Ben)

There were specific expectations of gain in terms of:

• business management skills:

People used to say, especially in business management, some management knowledge here would be better than learn in China, is different, so I would like to learn more, and then go back China find out what different. (Sky 2)

• a more practical focus for the study:

[in China] we don’t have enough case study. I think the case study also important. … Because you need practice in the life, practice in the fact. And I think you can learn some experience, not just from paper. (Connor 1)

• and more current content:

What I learned is some people have learnt. That’s old book. Not like here, up-date. (Linda 1)

None of these students had been winners in the competitive Chinese education system, and some of them felt short-changed by ‘college-level’ education which had left them undereducated:

When I working and then I meet some foreigner, especially Japanese, and always they talk about some economy or something, but I study computing, I don’t know any. (Mike 1)

I want to upgrade myself, because I saw a department manager, is export department, is very good at English and very good at negotiation and communication. I quite [admire] her. She’s a girl. I can’t believe, oh, I can’t

believable. I quite [admire] her so I choose go to New Zealand to upgrade myself. (Scott 1)

Study abroad, then, offered imagined future identities as educated people, ready to use their skills in higher status jobs than had thus far been available to them.

5.1.3.

Seeing the world

Underlying these reasons was the spirit of adventure, the desire to see the world, under conditions of independence that were not available in China where most of them were still living in the family home:

In Beijing I just school, home, home, school, school, school. (DX)

And then I want to choose, how do you say, more independent, and just want to know what does another country look like, and just want to taste a different culture. (Li Ming 1)

A significant aspect would be the opportunity to meet people from other cultures:

I’d like to see lots of Kiwis, and you know people from other countries … yeah, I think it’s the primary purpose why I want to go overseas. (KT)

This purpose was firmly entwined, of course, with the question of developing English language proficiency.

5.1.4.

English skills

Although few of the students suggested existing aptitude at English as a motivation for study abroad, its acquisition was a major reason for choosing New Zealand:

So the first mission for me is improve my English; the second is do my best in university. (Li Ming 1)

Why I choose New Zealand first, even if I’m not good at something, at least I good at maybe general English. … So that means even if I got the opportunity meet the foreigners clients I never afraid or hesitate again, or something else, I can just have good communication with them. (Scott 2)

For all of them English hovered in the background as a given of the experience, as an issue of concern and constant monitoring, as both facilitator and outcome of success in their undertaking.

In sum, then, while these students were certainly instrumentally motivated to gain the cultural capital in the job market that their current educational history denied them, their motivations were as complex and multilayered as one would expect of a group of young people whose future combined not simply a major educational undertaking but also an overseas adventure in a second language community (see Table 5.1).

Table 5.1 Reasons for coming