Rowan Veale

PERSONAL DETAILS

Name Rowan Veale

Nationality British

Date of Birth 30 th January 1982

Marital Status Single

EDUCATION

2004 – 2005. Qing Shan College, Beijing, China.

Part-time student of Mandarin Chinese. As a result of this course I am now fluent in all aspects of Chinese, including reading and writing.

2002 – 2003. The University of Hong Kong, China.

The final year of my degree course was completed as an exchange student at The University of Hong Kong's school of Computer Science and Information Systems.

2000 – 2002. The University of Nottingham, UK.

BSc (Hons) in Computer Science (2:1).

1997 – 2000. Morrison's Academy, Crieff, UK.

A-levels and Scottish equivalents:

A-level Accounting (A)

CSYS Computing (B)

Higher Accounting (A)

Higher Computing (A)

Higher English (A)

Higher Biology (A)

Higher Mathematics (B)

Higher Modern Studies (B)

Also, 7 subjects at Standard Grade, in all of which I achieved credit grades.

1996 – 1997. Perth Academy.

Awarded SCOTVEC certificate in Modern Studies.

1987 – 1996. Home educated by parents.

During this time I also completed a course in computer applications at Perth College.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Mar 2006 – present. TransAlly Translations ( 爱林翻译 ), Beijing, China.

I currently work part-time translating documents from Chinese to English for TransAlly Translations whenever a client requests that a native-English speaker perform translation. In addition, I edit documents translated by Chinese and write original articles from source materials when required. Source documents cover a wide variety of topics, with particular emphasis on press releases, news, and technology and automobile related articles, amongst others. I have performed translation for a number of large clients including Oracle and Red Hat and Western Union.

Jun 2005 – May 2006. Tiros Inc. ( 北京腾瑞万里信息技术有限公司 ), Beijing, China.

I held the joint position of Translator and Software Engineer at Tiros Inc., a Beijing-based mobile phone company, where I translated technical documents and developed the server-side of mobile phone navigation software. My primary task was to facilitate efficient communication between the company and its American and Canadian clients, with particular emphasis on the translation of technical documents and software manuals from Chinese to English. As the company is Chinese owned and managed, all communication between me and my colleagues was entirely in Chinese.

June 2004 – January 2005. Modern English ( 洋话连篇 ), Beijing, China.

I was employed as a teacher of English by the Modern English chain of schools, where I cooperated with a bilingual Chinese teacher to teach classes of between ten and twenty students. The company also selected me to teach a postgraduate English class at the People's University of China ( 人民大学 ), one of the their most important clients.

Oct 2003 - May 2004. PDAger Mobility Inc ( 北京协进科技有限公司 ), Beijing, China.

In my role as a software engineer at PDAger, I worked with the Java programming language to create distributed GPS applications, both for mobile phones and desktop computers. My most important project was the development of a client/server application for the display of maps over the Internet. The system utilized GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technology, supported by the postgreSQL database, to facilitate the storage and transmission of very large maps.

Aug 2003 – Sep 2003. Modern English ( 洋话连篇 ), Beijing, China.

See above for details.

Jun 2002 – Aug 2002. The Salmon Management Company, Perth, UK.

My role in The Salmon Management Company, a salmon distribution company with customers in France and the UK, was as temporary full-time bookkeeper. My duties included bookkeeping (using Sage), maintaining the office's computer network, sales and office administration tasks. During my time here I combined the company's three sales spreadsheets into a single spreadsheet, greatly increasing efficiency of data entry, and was awarded a bonus for my work by the managing director.

Feb 1999 – Sep 2000 and summer 2001. Farmfoods frozen food centre, Perth, UK.

My duties as a retail assistant included serving customers, operating checkouts, stock control, banking and occasionally dealing with shoplifters.

Aug 1997. Bluepoint, London, UK.

I spent two weeks as a student intern at Bluepoint, a large computer networking company in London. During this time I worked in the computer engineering, accounting and stock control departments.

INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES

While at university, I was a member of various clubs and societies including The Explorers (a hill-walking and climbing club), the snooker club and the Paintball Society. My other interests include table tennis, music, international politics, Asian languages and the building of computer systems. In my final year at Morrison's Academy I held the position of finance director in the school's Young Enterprise company (a scheme run by Strathclyde University, UK, whereby students run their own company).

ACHIEVEMENTS

I have been awarded various certificates and prizes including the following,

Universitas 21 Scholarship (Nottingham University, 2002).

Place on Universitas 21 exchange scheme (Nottingham University, 2002).

School prize for Computing (Morrison's Academy, 2000).

School prize for Accounting (Morrison's Academy, 2000).

Commended for good work in Mathematics (Morrison's Academy, 2000).

School prize for Computing (Morrison's Academy, 1999).

Commended for good work in Computing (Morrison's Academy, 1998).

School prize for Modern Studies (Perth Academy, 1997).

In 1999 I completed a short course in ‘Understanding Industry', for which I received a certificate. As the finance director of Morrison's Academy's Young Enterprise company, I sat the optional exam and received a distinction (the highest award possible). At Morrison's Academy I also took the opportunity to take an optional course in touch-typing, and obtained distinctions in both elements of the RSA 1 typing exam.

SKILLS

I am familiar with a number of popular software packages and programming languages, including the Microsoft Office suite, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Flash, Sage, Visual Basic, C, C++, Java (including J2ME, JSP, RMI, JMS and EJB), SQL, DMQL, postGIS and postgreSQL. I also have a good knowledge of Microsoft DOS, Windows, UNIX, Red Hat Linux and Real-Time Linux.

I am competent in the day-to-day running of computer systems and their assembly from parts, the general configuring of computer software (E.g. installing drivers, resolving conflicts, configuring the BIOS, etc) and the setting up of computer networks.

From my study at Qing Shan College in Beijing and from living in China, I am fluent in not only oral Mandarin Chinese but also in reading and writing. My English is also of a very high-standard, as shown by the ‘A' grade I achieved in the subject in high school.

In addition to the above skills, I would like to stress that I am hard working and enthusiastic, provided that I am working in a stimulating environment. For me, this means that my work must be interesting and provide a reasonable challenge. Being home educated by my parents for nine years taught me a large degree of self-motivation, which has proved invaluable in both work and study. I also enjoy meeting new people and working in different environments, such as foreign countries.