School of Languages and Communication Studies Holds 2025 Summer "Peach & Plum Fellowship" Alumni Symposium [2025-06-30]

Recently, the Party Branch of the English Department at the School of Languages and Communication Studies, Beijing Jiaotong University, in collaboration with the School's Youth League Committee, organized the 2025 Summer "Peach & Plum Fellowship" Mentorship and Professional Development Symposium. As a signature program of the English Department, this symposium serves as an important platform for the Party Branch's collaborative education mechanism and for cultivating humanistic qualities through extracurricular activities. Focusing on the practical needs of both undergraduate and postgraduate students, the event featured insightful sharing from alumni representatives, comprehensively demonstrating the developmental paths for English majors across multiple dimensions including academic learning, further education planning, and career choices.

Centered on the career pathways for English majors in the field of language intelligence, the symposium invited four outstanding alumni representatives—Rong Yan, Gou Siyao, Ma Mingke, and Lao Xinxian—to share their experiences in academic planning and career development. They guided teachers and students in exploring career paths for interdisciplinary talent combining "foreign languages + technology" and the broad development prospects in language intelligence for English majors, helping students formulate academic plans, broaden professional perspectives, and enhance employability.

• Rong Yan (Class of 2011, English; AIGC Product Manager at listed company Mobvoi) reviewed her growth through "three key turning points": being admitted to Peking University's Computer Technology program in 2015 marked her career starting point; she then clarified her interests through internships at multinational companies like Bosch and Amazon (career exploration phase); developed product methodology while leading AI product development for government services at a state-owned enterprise (capability accumulation phase); and ultimately transitioned to a tech company to create an intelligent writing platform serving over 500,000 global content creators (value realization phase). She emphasized how her English major background proved invaluable when managing global AIGC products. Using AI voice transcription tools like DupDub as examples, she pointed out that while AI translation technology continues to advance, human intervention remains essential in areas such as professional content review and cultural adaptation. She stressed that English majors should build a "language advantage + technological vision" capability structure, consciously understanding developments in interdisciplinary fields like natural language processing to seize opportunities in the AI era.

• Gou Siyao (Class of 2017, English; MA in Linguistics from University of Hong Kong; currently LLM Evaluation Expert at ByteDance's "Doubao") combined her statistics training at HKU and speech technology internship experience at iFLYTEK to explain core evaluation work: automated assessment verifying performance through algorithm metrics, and manual evaluation assessing user experience through professional judgment. She noted how her language background helps identify cultural biases and grammatical errors in model outputs when evaluating English-specific tasks. As a language-trained evaluation expert, she summarized four key advantages: high linguistic sensitivity, ability to design scientific evaluation standards, multilingual capability to meet diverse needs, and capacity to provide professional improvement suggestions. For English majors seeking employment, she recommended tailoring resumes to company recruitment websites, using internships to explore opportunities and avoid pitfalls, and maintaining an attitude of "embracing change and continuous learning" to adapt to industry evolution.

• Ma Mingke (Class of 2019, English; MSc in Big Data and Digital Futures from University of Warwick; currently AI Product Lead for Higher Education at iFLYTEK) shared his cross-disciplinary journey under the theme "Transitioning from English Major to AI Product Manager": he activated his "science DNA" through a finance minor during undergraduate studies, mastered tools like SQL, and developed structured thinking; deepened his understanding of AI technical principles during graduate studies, and accumulated experience through internships at platforms such as Xiaomi and Baidu. As a product manager, he summarized the characteristics of the internet industry with "speed, data, and evolution"—the fast-paced environment where "a project initiated today might be copied by competitors the day after tomorrow," the data-driven decision-making approach where "everything is determined by metrics," and the dynamic landscape of rapid changes in business, technology, and policies. Addressing the confusion English majors often face in career planning, he reflected, "The emergence of ChatGPT made me realize that a language background could actually become a unique advantage in the AI era". To this end, he proposed a "three-step" approach for English majors: first, build upon and solidify the foundational advantages in language; second, expand technical capabilities by minoring in or self-studying data analysis; and third, validate career directions through internships. He emphasized that English majors should maintain an open mindset in career choices, actively explore emerging roles such as AI product manager and data analyst, and find their own path through continuous trial and error.

• Lao Xinxian (Class of 2017, English; MA in Language Data Science and Applications from Shanghai International Studies University; currently AI Operations Expert at Ctrip's IBU, previously involved in corpus construction and prompt design at iFLYTEK) shared on "Language Data Science: New Cross-disciplinary Opportunities for English Majors," highlighting three core competencies cultivated through English studies—structured thinking, cross-cultural communication skills, and information processing efficiency—as solid foundations for career development. She noted how training in critical discourse analysis and translation criticism develops logical framework construction abilities crucial for handling complex data. She specifically mentioned that computer courses and innovation projects during her undergraduate studies opened doors to interdisciplinary development. Through examples like intelligent customer service balancing algorithm precision with cultural adaptation, she summarized three major trends in language data science: technology democratization, demand concretization, and talent interdisciplinarization. For English majors' career planning, she advised strengthening language foundations, actively acquiring text analysis skills like Python during undergraduate studies, exploring development directions through extensive internships or research participation, and continuously calibrating paths by following industry frontiers. Additionally, students mastering dialects or less-commonly-taught languages could focus on scarce language resource development. She concluded that "lifelong learning" matters more than "mastering specific skills" in the AI era.

The four alumni representatives provided comprehensive career development models covering academic planning, direction exploration, capability accumulation, and value realization, offering highly valuable references for language majors. Their paths fully demonstrated the employment potential and interdisciplinary development possibilities for English majors in language intelligence during the AI era. Whether as global product managers, model evaluation experts, higher education AI product leaders, or language data experts, their growth trajectories confirm that English majors who actively embrace technological transformation while maintaining open learning attitudes can not only break through traditional career boundaries but also combine foreign language advantages with language intelligence technologies to forge professionally competitive paths in cutting-edge technological fields.

During the event, the alumni representatives provided detailed answers to students' questions. The symposium featured substantial content and lively interactions, with participating students universally expressing that the sharing session not only helped them gain clearer understanding and planning for English major career development but also revealed the unique value and limitless potential of language intelligence in the digital era.