Reading Zilong’s Blogs

It’s been a year since I read Zilong’s Blog—a high school friend from Shanghai. Quite surprisingly, except for several classics that I have read before, his blogs are those words that impressed me the most and influenced me the deepest. His blogs are so powerful that can cloud me instantly after I have just skimmed over several lines. We barely met before, but his words are like from an old friend and a respectful teacher.

His wisdom does go beyond the people at his age. I heard several friends taking about him as a class leader in our high school—charismatic, respectful are the most words they use to describe him. But in the Chinese education system, where exam performance is the most valued measurement of a talented student, him wisdom is sometimes concealed by some exam killers. Until he came to United States, I did not realize just how important he is as a high alumnus of mine!

Reading a book can go deep, but cannot go too deep. So do his blogs! For the fact that I admire him so much, sometimes I may mismatch myself between the one I imagined and the one I am. Reading his blogs will inevitably influence my thoughts and behaviors, which may ultimately cause losing myself in it. But I am who I am. There is a subtle balance between reading great works and learning from great works. The art in keeping this balance is by applying those great philosophies to my own situation. As an old Chinese saying goes, “学为己用”.

I am not shy for showing admiration to people, especially for those peer friends around me. In fact, learning from these people served as a great way for me to grow mature. I am excited to find more of these kinds of people, and grow with them together to become the next generation of the world's leaders!

Year-end Self-reflection

It has been one year since I came to United States. Just like a company needs to have its year-end financial reports prepared for being reviewed by the shareholders, I, too, need to write down a self-year-end-reflection for the shareholder—myself.

I will first . When I was young, my father used to be very busy and most of the time he was at the work place. My mother has a job which is relatively easier so I basically spent my youth with my mother. I always divide my last 22 years’ life into three stages. One stage is from born to middle school, the day my father decided that I am a young man and would no longer beat me( in China, beating children is legal and almost every parents do). And surely he did, he become a mentor to me instead of a strict figure. The second stage is from that day to the day I came to America. At the second stage, I went to a prestige high school in Shanghai, being a nerd for three years, because the people there are so smart. After that, I was admitted to a University by recommendation, which means I did not need to take the College Entrance Exam to go to that college. And the two-year college life turned out to be very disappointing, so I decided to transfer to America for college.

The third stage starts from this point. People may say you have only spent one year here, how can you know you enter a new stage of life? Well, transfer is the best life choice I have ever made.  Studying abroad is a whole different experience from studying in my own country. Here I begin to understand how this world works. You can think of this as standing on a mountain and take a bird’s eye view of the whole city. Religions, cultures and technology begin to pour into my mind, and they crash and break, leaving me with thoughts that I would never achieve in my own country. It is not that my country does not have any religions, cultures or cutting edge technology; I live in Shanghai, one of the biggest cities in the world; but here is just a whole different perspective.

I have some high school friends here studying in Amherst and Yale, we talked several times and I feel that there is another world in those top institutions that I need to explore in the near future. But as a transfer student, I still need some time to stretch my arms and legs to get them stronger. One year has passed, compared to my peer transfer students who spent one year here, I speak more fluent English than they do which I am very proud of. Sometimes I complained it is unfair to compete with the juniors who have spent three years here, but now I realize again that life is about charging forward but not looking behind. In order to catch up with some of the top students here, I need to work just harder and harder.

For the past one year, chances were passing by my shoulders but there is no way for me to catch them. Getting enrolled in Fisher College in Autumn does not save a lot of opportunities because most of them have expired in Spring. I missed all three Honor Programs, Fisher Future, Industry Cluster, scholarship opportunities, and other potential titles. A lot of times, I am so embarrassed and annoyed that on my resume, I won’t be able to fill those blank areas and have to make the font size bigger in order to fill up the whole page. Resume cannot be built in one day, and I truly understand this. I have to build things brick by brick! So I went to the on-campus dining service to work for one semester, then I change my job to CSE department as a windows consultant. I joined an international student organization and became a member of them, and worked hard to get a position in the e-board.

Even though I have worked very hard for the past one year, but I could not find a direction which I can convince myself to contribute all of my energy to pursue it. I have asked my friends about it; went to lectures for the stories of successful people, and I figured out that I need someone who can lead me to the right direction—a mentor. I need someone who can help me sharpen my thought, organize my mind and find a goal. I cannot be an apprentice of myself, or that will be like a blind man walking in the dark.

In the end, I will throw away any regrets and complaints that I had in the past one year. Quotes by a friend of mine, which I couldn't agree with anymore. "As a 22-year-old, property-less and almost-penniless young man (though sponsored by my parents), I have a lot to lose, actually a whole world to lose". But that world won’t come back again. Regrets do not make me any a better person and they will drive away the new world of possibilities. Life is not about looking behind; it is about CHARGING FORTH.

Direction and Concentration

Should I go for the Export program? Should I apply for a Research program? Should I carry out a long-put plan for starting a student organization? Should I build a team to join the coming case competition? Should I begin to prepare for the next speech competition? Should I get the CFA title as soon as possible? Should I start to prepare for the GRE? I filled myself with questions like this, but I never even put a why in front of them. For sure I am an ambitious and diligent young man, but I need a right direction so that I can charge forward with one hundred percent of my energy. 

I find myself anxious once I calm down. Being persistent on my decisions is becoming harder and harder, because I feel that any decisions that I made at this point will influence my entire life. I get stuck in this conception, and become a man easily moved. 

Tonight, I asked myself this question: What do I want? I answered quickly: I want to go to a well-known graduate school. I want to stay in a school I longed for long for my last two years of school life. 

The goal is simple and straight forward. But it is not as easy as it looks, I must concentrate myself on this so that I can realize it. So I go back to those questions, and look at them again. Now my mind becomes clear: I only need to make the effort that can contribute to my goal. So now, what should I do? Find a research opportunity; get an intern in the summer; focus on my current student club; begin to prepare for the GRE and study as long as possible for the courses. I feel much easier. Then I put them in order: courses, GRE, student club, internship, research. These 5 areas look sound and great.

One big philosophy in the formula of success is concentration. The great power in it has been seen from many extraordinary people and their stories. Once I truly understand this point, I am one step closer to success.

Three Realizations Today

Today is a very productive day. I go to an advisor to talk about my confusions and struggles during the past one year, and I fortunately received plenty of helpful advises on what I am going to do and how to do it better. During the dinner, I talked an honor student who is also my friend about her take on having an intern during the summer. At night, I watched Zilong’s speeches again and find some more inspirations.

First, I met my advisor Lindsay in the morning to talk about my last year experiences and thoughts. I complained to her about my experience as a transfer student from a totally different education system and at a bad timing. I missed many opportunities simply because I was unaware of them or they had already expired. Frustrated was I, she told me that anything can be related to leadership and flexibility from a leadership position or study abroad experience will serve as strong bullet points on the resume. More importantly, she asked me to think about what I can do for the company but not what the company can do for me if I am employed. This idea is crucial because it provokes me to think where my values are and how much they are worth being paid for. The same idea also applied to application for a graduate school—what can you do for your school?

Second, language skill is critical, but not as critical as I thought. I used to be convinced that sound language skill is the bottom line to joining the workforce. This is true because the largest part of work is communication. But at the same time, international students shouldn’t be intimidated by this because sometimes your language skill my not be sound, but sound enough to take on the responsibility of a job. She told me during her intern at the Limited Brand, there are some international employees that are not speaking very fluent English. And this did not prevent them from working efficiently and productively.

Third, Zilong is always the source of inspirations and my role model. I cannot imagine a people like him spent just one year here in United States who can speak this high level English, but I do believe I can get to this level if I spend two years, three years or even four years. In addition, His deep understanding of Asian philosophy as well as Western philosophy has helped him to think and act like an extraordinary people. I know this cannot be gained within a short period of time, but I do believe under his inspiration, I am at least on the right track and will be there in the near future.