Five UW students of Chinese competed in the 2018 Midwest College Chinese Speech Contest, held at Lake Forest College in Chicago, on April 21. This year, the five students included: Collin O’Keeffe, Elizabeth Somsen, Kristine Nguyen, Jake Lee and David Burnett.
The contest divided all participants into six groups based on their Chinese proficiency level and language background. The five UW students, all non-heritage speakers, competed in four groups, which involved first through fourth year level proficiency.
Collin O’Keeffe and Elizabeth Somsen tied for gold in Group One. Kristine Nguyen and Jake Jae Yong won first place in Groups Two and Three, respectively. David Burnett tied with another contestant from a different university for first place in Group Four. Once again, the UW team was awarded the most medals. UW brought back five of the eight gold medals from this competition.
The competition included schools from the Midwest and Great Lakes areas, such as the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Minnesota, Indiana University, Purdue University and University of Iowa. As the gold medal winner for the highest level competition, David Burnett gave a speech on behalf of all the contestants at the event’s banquet.