Sophia Dooly (2020 Cohort): From “Mulan” to Yenching Scholar

During her childhood, Sophia Dooly（董韩亚）enjoyed watching Disney’s animated film “Mulan” and television series “Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat”. Through these interests, she became fascinated by Chinese history and culture. Since then, visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing became one of her greatest childhood dreams. At that age, Sophia did not realize that one day she would not only visit the Forbidden City three times but also engage in historical research around the documents of the Qing-era Imperial Household Department.

Sophia started learning Chinese in ninth grade at Wayzata High School. In 2016, she was admitted to the Chinese Flagship Program. Through the program, she studied abroad in Beijing twice during the summers of 2017 and 2018. Later, she attended the Capstone program in Nanjing, taking courses related to archeology and museum curatorship. These experiences bring her closer to her dream of becoming a researcher or curator working on Chinese history.

After graduating in 2020, Sophia was admitted to the history and archeology graduate program at the Yenching Academy of Peking University. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sophia is currently taking her courses online. She hopes that in the near future she may return to Beijing and finish her graduate studies along the shore of Peking University’s Weiming Lake.

Sophia recalled that Yenching Academy looked very highly on her Flagship experience. She is now part of the global China scholar community at the academy and would be happy to share tips about her experience with any interested Flagship students.