Liwen Sun

I am an international student who was born in China and lived there for eighteen years. When I was in high school, I started dreaming of becoming an employee of the United Nations International Child and Emergency Funds because of a feeling that I should do something to help other people, by improving their living qualities, or access to higher education.

As an international student working in sociology, I have perceived different people with their unique social backgrounds. I learned from my courses and life experiences that people are elements of societies, it is the society they live within that shapes their behaviours, and it is their shared expectations of appropriate conduct that build up different societies. In my daily life, I actively communicate with people from different cultures, work at various jobs, and live in different levels of social classes. It is not just theories that make me understand the society I live in, but also these people's beliefs and lives that visualise my knowledge. Their ways of living reveal to me how different norms are applied to people according to their social status, gender, and race, and their needs enable me to understand the connection between people and different institutions. With this knowledge, I strongly realise that social science is a field that seeks to understand how a society operates and how people live within it, and what we are able to do to make both of them, people and society, to get better off.

• Ultimate frisbee
• Cycling
• Traveling
• Boxing