Take Action Beyond Your Passion: Reflections from My College Year
How Foreign Language Influenced My Academic Journey and Beyond
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As a follow-up to my previous post, let me briefly reflect on how I approached my 20s in college with my plan if I could meet three guiding stars when I applied.
I wanted to meet my mother’s wish by staying in Shanghai after college;
I had to avoid English in my freshman year because I was a poor learner;
I did not want to be embarrassed in college by my weakness in foreign languages.
Back then, getting into college in China was like winning the lottery, with slightly better odds than finding a unicorn in today's Silicon Valley and AI boom... With these three conditions, my choices were essentially limited to the minimum.
Luckily, I was accepted into a 5-year offshore structural engineering program at Tongji University, which has a good reputation in the civil engineering program. My major is basically an interdisciplinary experiment for the engineering school at that time, combining civil engineering and marine hydrology for oil platform design.
What is unique about it, however, is that it requires every freshman in its 5-year program to learn German. In essence, everyone has to start from the ground up when it comes to learning this foreign language. No one seems to question that "engineering" includes mastering a language that most people in Shanghai don't speak. This university has a tradition of being friendly and unbiased toward Germans since its founding.
It was a natural and accepted match for my criteria.
In retrospect, the criteria for my application seem hilariously narrow and self-pitying. My strengths in high school math and physics were completely ignored, even though I had envisioned myself as a mathematician as a teenager.
The rationale behind my college plan was as proportional as using a teaspoon to measure the ocean. Totally wrong with my measurement, taking everything into consideration... I was too young and ignorant.
Okay, to say the least, it was an odd plan to begin with, considering the foreign language was a major consideration.
Every week we spent 14 hours on “Deutsche Sprachlehre fur Auslander”. The language learning was so intense every day. It was interesting to think differently, for example, we were surprised to learn that the verb could be placed last in a sentence after the subject and object in German.
But the most fascinating thing for us is the content of the textbook with its original Western cultural elements. It made me feel more open and free to accept the difference. It is indeed outlandish, considering that China has just opened its door.
As a boy who was afraid to hold girls' hands in high school, I developed the courage to organize some group outings with girls under the guise of group meetings in college. I began to find that poetry was the most appropriate form of expression for my true feelings in those years!
Well, my GPA was average in my class... I justified it by saying that I had the balance of study (work) and life in those wonderful college years.
To me, poetry is life.
This may not be the best strategy for academic success.
In the senior (5th) year, it suddenly dawned on me that I might not be able to get a job in my major locally or even just offshore from Shanghai.
I found that my liberal passion wasn't translating into the reality I needed to survive, so I had to regroup my willpower with my STEM instinct by burning the midnight oil and cramming that last minute text for the graduate program.
Yeah, I was accepted into graduate school with more solid grounding and justification.
Then I promptly updated my plan to go into academia as a career. As it turned out, after graduation I was able to teach in the Department of Civil Engineering at Tongji University in Shanghai. Yes, I was able to see my mother often, if not daily. Mission is accomplished.
After a year, I got married.
As part of my academic career plan, I decided to apply for a PhD program in the USA two years later. Nothing screams "future" like a cross-continental leap. In order to survive the current of life, I chose the continent on this side.
Looking back on those 10 years, learning German seemed like a waste because I can no longer speak it, even though I visited the country a few times. The real benefit I gained was an appreciation for the spirit of freedom in Western culture.
Ultimately, this led me to the crucial realization that English was actually kind of important if I was going to realize my passion.
Keep the following in mind as you plan:
First, know your strengths and weaknesses. Keep in mind that you probably developed your strengths and gut instincts even before you started college.
Second, early justifications and plans may be as realistic as fairy tales. Youth gives you room for such delightful misalignments. Being bold to make a splash.
Third, fortunately, the misalignments can be corrected when opportunities knock, or when you desperately seek them out.
My young warriors, embrace your journey with open arms. Just as flowers bloom with the promise of spring, your career begins with immense potential, no matter what happens. Only you can seize every opportunity, no matter how unconventional your plan may be.
My college years, despite a few peculiarities, validate the opportunity to succeed. I don't think I could do anything differently because I have happily accepted the consequences in the rearview mirror of my life.
But use your youth to discover, develop, and master your talents. Make the most of it by doing the right thing at the right time, at least in your 20s, as I recommend.
It's unlikely that you'll know exactly what you'll become, even with a list of life goals.
That's okay, as long as you find something to celebrate at each milestone.
Practice the following along the way:
First, think abstractly, and find relationships in everything by identifying patterns; math is your friend here, at least know your fractions by heart. Appreciate philosophy and history to add to your thinking materials.
Second, digest complexity and dependency, and appreciate multidimensionality and repetition; learn computer programming for that. You don't have to be a computer science major, by the way.
Third, always keep the end goal in mind; make five-year plans and review them annually, and meditate quarterly or monthly if you're feeling ambitious.
As I reflect on where I am now, it's clear that time waits for no one. From the battlefield of college admissions to aligning strengths with goals in launching my career, my college year is an illustration of unexpected change and realization.
In short, early reasoning and justifications may be unrealistic, but they're correctable over time when you're young. This underscores the importance of learning from past experiences and adapting to new opportunities.