Gao juggles skating, Harvard studies

[gsk8]

USA Today - After finishing fifth at US Nats the past three seasons and just about quitting the sport last year, Gao is having the best season of her career — while going to Harvard full time.

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[Olympia]

This just knocks me out. The girl must be made of iron. Even the Hughes girls, Yale and Harvard respectively, waited until after they skated at the Olympics to go to college.

[jatale]

Good luck Christina! You are a Supergirl!

[Mathman]

How interesting that Harvard offers a course in "Chinese for Heritage Students." I wonder if her family spoke Chinese at home or if they deliberately wanted their children to become Americanized as quickly as possible.

[burntBREAD]

How interesting that Harvard offers a course in "Chinese for Heritage Students." I wonder if her family spoke Chinese at home or if they deliberately wanted their children to become Americanized as quickly as possible.

We have that here at University of Michigan as well -- it's a bit unfair to put both "native speakers" and people just learning in the same class, so they split them up. From my experience (with my parents as well as others in my area), Chinese parents actually begin to regret not immersing their children in Chinese more, as when we start to grow we speak English at school and elsewhere outside, so Chinese is basically only spoken in the home, with family friends, or at Chinese school, in my case .

[aftertherain]

We have that here at University of Michigan as well -- it's a bit unfair to put both "native speakers" and people just learning in the same class, so they split them up.

I agree with burntBREAD. Different spanish courses are offered for non-native speakers and one for native speakers in one of the high schools where I live. They've designed differently to meet the needs of different students-- I think students in the native-speakers course were already reading Spanish literature in the first or second year while those in non-native courses were still learning how to conjugate verbs.

(Also, Christina must be some kind of superhuman to go to Harvard full-time AND skate full-time. Either that, or she's immensely disciplined. I don't hope that she does this in the upcoming Olympic season though, but it's up to her to decide!)

[jenaj]

USA Today - After finishing fifth at US Nats the past three seasons and just about quitting the sport last year, Gao is having the best season of her career — while going to Harvard full time.

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She takes the bus every morning to the rink???! I am in awe of her dedication.

[momskate]

Good for her, but thats exactly why she wouldn't be able to become a champion. You can't do both.