Bright job prospects...

A wide variety of career opportunities are open to our postgraduate students of East Asian studies. Previous graduates have gone onto jobs in interpreting and translating, journalism, tourism, administration, international banking, marketing, business, law, the media, the civil and diplomatic services etc.

As a graduate with modern language and multi-disciplinary skills, you have an important advantage when applying for a job. A recent survey has revealed that students of modern languages are less likely to be out of work than graduates in subjects like business, engineering, and computing.

Studying an East Asian language does not train you for any specific job, but it equips you with skills, experience and a breadth of understanding which a wide range of employers increasingly find both interesting and valuable. At the end of your studies you will have developed much sought after skills and expertise.

Visit the University Careers Centre for further support and advice on your career prospects after graduation.

Alumni

After you have graduated, you become one of our alumni. Because Leeds is one of the UK's largest universities, its alumni community is huge. Stay up to date with news and events of the Leeds alumni community via Leeds Alumni Online and Leeds, the twice-yearly magazine. This will help you keep in touch with, or search for, old friends, and find out about alumni groups and activities. You can also benefit from the alumni careers mentoring network, and a range of other services on offer.

Listed below are just a few examples of what kinds of jobs our Masters students have gone on to do after graduating.

• Sub-editor for the BBC World Service (Media Monitoring Section), part of a team that covers the whole Asia-Pacific Region from Pakistan through to Japan (Abigail Mawdsley, MA in Chinese and Business 2002/03)
• Food and Beverage Marketing Executive, The Westin Hotel Group, Shanghai (Natalie Futcher, MA in Chinese and Business 2002/03)
• Director, Canadian branch of Millennium Relief and Development Services, an international non-profit humanitarian aid organization (John Archer, MA in Asia-Pacific Studies 2000/01)
• Translator for Japanese company, Sokkia, working in Kanagawa, Japan (Christopher Hargreaves, MA in Asia-Pacific Studies, 1999/2000)
• Lawyer and Advocate, KS Chia Gurdeep & Param, Singapore (Pradeep Kumar, MA in Asia-Pacific Studies, 2000/01)
• Account Executive, Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance, Shanghai Branch, (Gracie Qin Mengling, MA in Chinese Business & Asia Pacific 2002/03)
• Assistant Executive Editor, Mediacorp Radio Singapore , Singapore (Linda Lee, MA in Asia-Pacific Studies, 1996/97)
• System Engineer, Ideal Net a computer company located in Okinawa, Japan (Simon Colston, MA in Asia-Pacific Studies, 1997/98)
• Marketing Executive, Industrial Power Supplies Department, CMPS Ltd., Shanghai, (part of Chloride Group PLC of the UK) (Tom Owen, MA in Chinese and Business 2003)
• Manager, South West Community Development Council, Singapore (Panner Dharmalingam, MA in Asia Pacific Studies 2001)
• Business Reporter in Hong Kong for the China Daily newspaper (Hing Po Lam, MA in Chinese Business and the Asia Pacific, 2004)
• Management Consultant, Atkins China (Sebastian Lewis, MA Chinese and Business, 2004)
• Project Manager (Community Livelihood Security), Center for Community Development Studies (an NGO), Kunming, China (Kokoévi Sossouvi, MA in Chinese and Business, 2005)
• Manager - Global Operations, Unity Resources Group ( a risk management consultancy firm), Dubai, UAE (Sanjeev Kumar Gopalan, MA Asia Pacific Studies, 2005)
• Client Services Executive, Factset Europe Ltd., London (Cam Voong, MA Chinese and Business, 2006)
• Working at the Taipei City Mayor Candidate Office, Department of Culture and Information (Kai-Yung Yuan, MA Asia Pacific Studies, 2006)
• Media Specialist, B&Q, Shanghai (Duncan Halls, MA Chinese and Business, 2006)
• Chinese Translator and Interpreter, Sunyu Translation, Nanjing (Simon Liang, MA Chinese and Business 2007)
• Sales Representative Associate, Cisco Systems, Amsterdam (Henrike von Welck, MA Chinese Business and the Asia Pacific 2007)

Getting in Touch...

If you are one of our postgraduate alumni and would like to update us with your latest job details, then please let us know by emailing to smlcpg@leeds.ac.uk.