Recently, under the guidance and recommendation of ZJUI Adjunct Faculty Professor Ryan Flanagan and Professor Mary Lucille Hays, Mr. SHEN Zhuoyang (‘27, Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Mr. YU Ziheng, (‘27, Computer Engineering), participated in the UIUC Rhetoric Student Essay Contest with native speakers and were selected as winners of the contest with their unique essay topics, rigorous logical argumentation, and compact essay structure.

Experts who judge the UIUC Rhetoric Student Essay Contest, which is based on the general writing course for all students who participated in the Rhetoric Program, select only 10-20 winners each semester. Essays of the winners may be published in the UIUC textbook I Write: A Writing Guide for the Undergraduate Rhetoric Program at the University of Illinois.

"The award of the UIUC Rhetoric Student Essay Contest was actually a surprise to me, and I think it was mainly due to Prof. Hays's writing class," Mr. SHEN Zhuoyang shared with us. "I feel like Prof. Hays's classroom is like a happy family. She not only taught us many writing principles and skills, but also told us the importance of academic integrity and copyright awareness, making our writing standardized." His instructor, Prof. Mary Lucille Hays praised SHEN Zhuoyang as one of the most talented and dedicated students in RHET 101. Therefore, when she heard the good news, she expressed great pleasure, but was not surprised. "SHEN Zhuoyang chose the traditional Chinese culture carnival as the topic. His description is exquisite and vivid, making every scene of traditional culture performances vivid. What impressed me most was the Chinese drum performances. From between his lines, I felt the tremendous energy unleashed by each stroke of the drumstick and drum surface, and saw the enthusiastic, youthful and sunny drummers struggling to beat the drum."