Patty Wang is the Regional Manager (East Asia) in the International Student Recruitment team based in our Beijing office. In her profile, Patty tells us about her role in China, her love of hiking and who she would invite to her dream dinner party.
I have been working at Queen Mary for almost four years. I feel that the first three years went quickly and that last year was extremely busy but full of different challenges. Before joining Queen Mary, I worked for the University of Surrey in China.
I lead on the recruitment of Chinese students and work closely with three other colleagues in Beijing. I am responsible for the China marketing and recruitment strategy, and I am involved with international partnership activity in China. All Beijing-based staff travel to cities in China to meet our agents, partners and potential students during the recruitment seasons. They key objectives for the Beijing office are to deliver Queen Mary’s strategy, promote our courses and explore marketing opportunities for student recruitment.
I travel a lot for work. Due to the time difference working with colleagues in the UK, I normally catch up with my emails in the early morning and plan our team activities. Typically I visit three agents and/or university partners in the daytime. I will check and reply to agents and student enquiries during my lunch break in a café. During the last part of the day, I’ll have meetings with my manager and/or others. I will also catch up with my emails again, and go to gym if time permits. Normally I travel to two or three cities in a week, and sometimes two or three cities a day if they are close to each other.
I work closely with my team in China, as well as my line manager, Jake Duffin, who is Head of International and EU Student Recruitment. I like the way that I am busy working with my Chinese colleagues in the morning and my manager in the late afternoon. Managing and communicating well is vital for my job. Clarifying purposes, focusing on goals, and providing the right tools to get the job done are the key factors in the role as most of our time will be spent travelling and meeting students. I have a lot of support and remote supervision from my line manager whose expertise has helped me develop.
The best thing about my job is giving professional advice to potential students and their parents when they are choosing a university and programme as it is a big decision for a family. Seeing their smiling faces when they feel you have truly helped them gives me real job satisfaction and makes me feel like I am making a difference in people’s lives. Often, a few years later, you see that our former students have been successful and have developed good careers after choosing Queen Mary. I feel like I have helped someone and their family to achieve their dreams.
I really like to the vision of Strategy 2030, which informs all of the China team’s activities and helps us to understand the future direction of the University and our role in it. It opens the doors for opportunities, like the meaning of higher education. From a student recruitment perspective, I can help the University to raise its profile in China where we have done very well, and can increase and diversify the Chinese student population by looking for good partners. I can also help to improve alumni engagement in China.
I would say diversity. Diversity in programmes, diversity in the student population, and diversity in life in London. All of these things are what a young person needs to have and explore in their university life. I truly believe that Queen Mary provides a fantastic experience for international students.
I would like to be a Tourism Experiencer and share my blogs and vlogs with everyone who loves travelling. I would share all of my travel experience including local hotels, food and shopping in vintage shops. I like to meet different people and get to know their culture, life and stories.
I love hiking very much. I have been to Snowdonia National Park in Wales, the MacLehose Trail in Hong Kong, Horton Plains National Park in Sri Lanka and, of course, a lot places in my hometown Beijing. I enjoy every single second seeing different beautiful views when I’m on the road. Afterwards, I'll reward myself with a big dinner as a prize.
During this difficult time, having a dinner party with London-based and other regional colleagues is a dream. We haven’t seen each other in person for almost two years, and my manager’s first China trip has been postponed several times. I am really looking forward to a time that the China team and I can have a nice dinner party with all our colleagues in London, which means that the world will have gone back to normal. We can share our challenges, our gains and our joys.