Matthew Hurst
In 2015, I graduated from my undergraduate degree and began working in London. This coincided with the height of the ‘golden era of UK-China relations’: Xi Jinping undertook a state visit to the UK and, it seemed, every company was looking to China as a market and partner. Over the years that followed, I worked variously in media, charity, consultancy and professional services organisations, all of which were focused on UK-China. These roles enabled me to travel frequently, undertake language tuition in the evenings, and gain experience of writing op-eds and delivering talks on the topic. But after five years, I decided I wanted to learn much more. I chose the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies programme to consolidate and build upon my professional experience of working with China in an intense period of study.
What I most enjoyed about the MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies programme is its interdisciplinary nature. Sitting in the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, the course straddles the humanities and social sciences, allowing students both to adopt approaches they may already be comfortable with and to dabble in disciplines that they become exposed to whilst on the course. For instance, the mandatory Michaelmas Term module ‘The Study of Contemporary China’ uses a different discipline each week to look at China’s past and present. This smorgasbord of a module benefitted me and my peers by introducing us to a wide range of approaches to the study of China.
Apart from gaining knowledge, I also learned to expand my own academic abilities. Having spent half a decade away from serious studying, I began the course feeling a little rusty! But Oxford’s complimentary balance of confronting students with a challenging workload and providing support as required encourages one to mature rapidly. Case in point: I was delighted not only to receive a Distinction on my thesis, but also to have an extract published in a peer reviewed journal (DOI: 10.1080/07075332.2021.2024588) and to present my work in international conferences (such as the Association for Asian Studies New England Conference at Harvard University, Oxford-Hong Kong Forum, the British Association for Chinese Studies Conference at the University of Birmingham, etc.). From beginning the programme with a clutch of anecdotal professional experiences of contemporary China to by the end publishing a piece of original research on an episode in UK-China international relations, Oxford encouraged me to develop far more than I had thought possible during a one-year course.
After graduating from the MSc programme, I took a year out to develop a PhD research proposal, which is to an extent an extension of my thesis for the Masters programme at Oxford. I recently started working on my PhD at the University of York; my research is AHRC funded through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH) to whom I am immensely grateful.
The MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies programme at Oxford not only showed me different approaches to the study of China and taught me things I never knew I was interested in, it also helped me to grow from a student into a researcher. The programme was, therefore, both a challenging and gratifying experience whilst on the course, and a pivotal undertaking that has helped to shape me and my future.