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.