At her busiest, Jiang Yirong took eight courses in one semester while competing in debate tournaments, learning unfamiliar software after changing majors, assisting professors with exhibition projects, and juggling an online internship. “I felt like an octopus,” she laughed.
But it was a happy kind of busy.
This March, the Beijing Normal-Hong Kong Baptist University (BNBU) student received an offer from the University of Cambridge for a master’s programme in Digital Humanities.
Jiang Yirong
Class of 2026, Department of Culture Creativity and Design
Offer: MPhil in Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge
For Jiang, staying busy was a conscious choice.
“Before deciding what I truly wanted to pursue long term, I felt I needed to try enough things first,” she said. At BNBU, the freedom to explore turned her into the “octopus” she jokingly calls herself today.
Yet with so many commitments came a challenge: how to avoid burning out.
Her answer was surprisingly simple: eat well and sleep well.
The advice came from a talk during her first year, when a professor encouraged students to “eat well, sleep well, and live well.” At the time, Jiang found it unexpected. “I thought university advice would be about pushing harder and working nonstop,” she recalled.
Instead, those words became her survival strategy. Even during her busiest periods, she made sure to maintain regular meals and a stable routine. “It actually helped me stay productive for longer instead of exhausting myself too early,” she said.
Jiang wins multiple scholarships at BNBU
Planning also became one of her most effective tools. At the start of every semester, she organised all assignment deadlines into a master schedule, then broke them down into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks. “The earlier you plan, the more room you have to adjust,” she explained.
Jiang's daily schedule
Her willingness to explore eventually led her to transfer from her original major to Media Arts and Design in her second year. Drawn by courses ranging from communication studies and art history to 3D modelling and graphic design, Jiang discovered an environment that encouraged experimentation and creative expression.
Over time, she realised what excited her most was critical thinking: debating, analysing ideas, and questioning assumptions. That interest gradually drew her into research.
Jiang in a debate tournament
Under the guidance of faculty members and senior students, Jiang participated in projects on human-computer emotional interaction, assisted with workshops and data collection, and co-authored research later presented at a leading international conference in design studies.
Jiang with schoolmates after an academic workshop
When preparing her application for Cambridge, she suddenly realised that all the seemingly unrelated experiences she had accumulated, cultural studies, storytelling, coding, and 3D modelling, had naturally converged in the interdisciplinary field of digital humanities.
Looking back, Jiang believes the greatest gift BNBU gave her was the freedom to explore slowly and adjust along the way.
“From uncertainty to clarity, step by step,” she said.
And as she prepares for her next journey, the “octopus” still remembers the advice that carried her through university life:
Eat well. Sleep well.
From MPRO
Reporter: Cecilia Yu
Photos provided by Juan Rengifo, Cecilia Yu and the interviewee
Video: Cecilia Yu and Juan Rengifo
