On September 10, 2021, our international student Tewodros Megabiaw from Ethiopia received Huafon Virtue, being the first international student who has this honor. Tewodros has been enrolled as a CSC postgraduate in Northwestern Polytechnical University during the last summer holiday. When he was a student in our university, he had been champions at many contests, including International Student Chinese Speech Contest, 《China in My Eye》Writing Contest, etc. Since he was a computer science student, he developed a pandemic tracking app which made a great contribution to the pandemic prevention and control. Meanwhile, he studied Chinese language very hard and try to serve as a messenger for cultural exchange between China and foreign countries.
Huafon Virtue Awards is set up by Huafon Group, a corporation engaged in Polymer Materials, hoping to carry forward WZU’s tradition of cultivating students’ moralities, praise excellent staff of WZU who have made great contribution and encourage young people to study hard to earn a bright future. The organizing committee evaluates Tewodros: “You have crossed mountains and oceans to China just to pursue the love in your heart; you have traveled all the way from Ethiopia to China, just to realize the ambition in your heart. You are the benchmark of international students and the pride of WZU!”. The teachers appraised Tewodros as an international student with excellent character, hardworking, enthusiastic, active in practical activities, and an international student with excellent development in all aspects. Most importantly, in Tewodros’ heart, “Studying in China is a happy thing!”
As a child, Tewodros loved to make a research on computers. He and his buddies took apart the family's desktop computer in the hope of figuring out how it works. When he graduated from high school, Tewodros was at the number one spot of his class and admitted to a college in Ethiopia. His parents wanted him to study medicine, but he realized that he could not go against his heart and wished to pursue his favorite career in the future, so he insisted to study abroad. Of all the countries and schools, he chose China and WZU, far away in Asia, because China not only has a completely different language and culture form his own, but also boasts a world-leading position in AI and 5G. He wanted to come here to hone his skills which could be better gained in this particular environment. He eventually convinced his parents and came to China.
After studying at WZU, he worked hard to master professional knowledge not to let himself and his parents down. His major course teacher saw his persistence and research spirit and invited him to join her research group. At that time, he was still struggling to learn programming, but he used his spare time to learn programming skills online and eventually participate in and finish the research tasks successfully. What’s more, he became the international student with the highest GPA at that semester and was invited to make a speech at the opening ceremony as the representative of outstanding international students to encourage the new students to study hard.
As the pandemic broke out in the early 2020, he began to think about applying his knowledge to real-life situations, therefore he settled down to develop an pandemic tracking app that would update news about the pandemic in real time and keep international students at home and abroad informed of the development of the pandemic. In addition, he has developed several other apps, such as social media and shopping apps, and released them for use in mobile application stores.
Apart from professional studies, he actively participated in campus activities and experienced traditional Chinese culture. He won the first prizes in several Chinese language related competitions held by CIE, and also studied Chinese with the support of his Chinese teacher and passed the HSK level 4 exam with a high score.
Tewodros likes to share what he has learned to those who need it. He not only held an English corner at school to help Chinese students to learn English, but also offered academic support in his apartment to help international students who have difficulty in subjects such as math and computer, and eventually these students caught up with their classes. During the summer of 2018, he returned to his own country specifically to hold a summer camp with Basil Dahl University to share what he had learned in China and to introduce his study abroad experience to local high school students and to present China and Chinese culture to them.
Tewodros, who was graduating from WZU, was very sad to leave. He said, "I am grateful to China and WZU for giving me the opportunity to study my favorite major. It became the place where my dream started and gave me good memories to make me brave to face the difficulties in the future. I believe China is a good place to study and live, and I intend to become a messenger of cultural exchange between China and my home country in the future, helping both sides to achieve mutual benefits."
Now Tewodros is a postgraduate student majored in Software Engineering at Northwestern Polytechnic University, and he will continue to realize his dream in China.
