Young Alumni Spotlight – Maya Bian
Young Alumni Spotlight – Maya Bian
Understanding Care in Non-traditional Settings
Maya Bian (’20) graduated from UT and the College Scholars Program in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five months before then, she had been in China conducting ethnographic research for her senior project. Bian’s research, generously supported by endowments to the College Scholars Program, had been concerned with the experiences of elderly residents living in the long-term care facility her grandfather lives in. How were meanings of care shaped, articulated, and practiced within such a non-traditional institutional care setting in China?
“The influence of College Scholars on the formation of this question and the interdisciplinary design of my research was substantial.”
“The influence of College Scholars on the formation of this question and the interdisciplinary design of my research was substantial,” Bian said. “I was seeking to understand how the interaction of Chinese philosophical thought and China’s socioeconomic and political context played out in the arena of care and well-being.”
Her project, as personal as it had been academic, was rewarding and illuminating, and she continues to build upon her work as a College Scholar in her current master’s program. Bian just started her second year as a Yenching Scholar at Peking University—which has been entirely online due to the pandemic—where she studies China studies with a research focus on eldercare and care work.
“This next year, I will be focused on writing my master’s thesis, where I hope to explore the efficacy of state attempts to regulate what it means to care through the law and official discourse,” Bian said. “Upon graduating from the Yenching Academy, I plan to work in a caregiving capacity to ground my academic experiences with a greater empathy for and understanding of the labor of care, which seems particularly
Eventually, Bian would like to return to school for an MD and/or a PhD in medical anthropology.
“I pursue this path with immense gratitude for the College Scholars Program, not only because the program encouraged and supported me in pursuing the varied interests that have led me to where I am now, but also because it taught me that doing so will make me a better student, researcher, and community member.”