From Jilin University to Deloitte: what a Chinese degree does for an African graduate

What he did beyond the classroom

Over three years at Jilin University this student assembled a record that went well beyond coursework: he was elected class monitor, attended a summer seminar at Fudan University, attended the annual meeting of the New Development Bank, and represented his university at a Model United Nations competition in New York.

He is explicit that these activities changed him. Frequent public speaking and debate, he says, produced a measurable improvement in both his thinking and his ability to express it, and that is what he identifies as the lasting effect of the degree.

Where it led

He is now employed by Deloitte, where his work involves tracking economic developments in China and other emerging markets — a role that exists precisely because someone needs to read Chinese sources and understand the environment they come from.

The keynote address at a youth forum in Egypt is the visible marker of the speaking ability he built at university, but the employment is the more important outcome for applicants weighing the decision: a Chinese degree in international relations, combined with a demonstrably active student career, produced a job that could not have been done from outside China.

The structural context

South Africa is a useful case study because its numbers are well documented. South African students in China passed 3,000, more than seven times the figure five years earlier, and the majority of them were self-funded rather than scholarship-funded. The Chinese Government Scholarship had supported more than 400 South African students by 2019, and Chinese universities including Central South University and Nanjing Tech offered further dedicated places.

For applicants from the region the practical implication is that the self-funded route is already the majority route — which means the choice is not "scholarship or nothing" but about which university and city make the budget work.