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In this interview with Amy, she discusses transferring from Renmin U. to a University in the US.*************************************************************************One of my favorite phrases, the geography of the imagination, first coined by Guy Davenport, defines the way certain people approach the world. It is not simply that they have been to many places and adapted to many cultures; rather, they have internalized a term that gets thrown around all too often today--global citizenship. Amy has earned her global credential by living imaginatively--by seeing things that are not there, but that will be. She has the ability to see beyond her world, to see things that will transport her to where she wants to go, within herself and outside herself too. Her words will both inspire and educate anyone who wants to be find ways to live an examined and imaginative life.***********************************************************************Can you tell us a bit about your family and where in China you grew up?I grew up as the only child of my parents in Beijing. Just as with many Chinese parents, they value the power of education and provided me with the best opportunities they could. Both of my parents studied Economics in College. Before retirement, my dad did economic research on rural finance and my mom worked for a microfinance company.Amy learning to balance learning and lifeWhat high school did you attend? You studied for the Gaokao, the test that many regard as the most challenging admission test in the world. Can you describe what it was like to study for this test.I went to the Experimental High School attached to Beijing Normal University.Studying for the GaoKao was definitely one of the toughest times in my life. Usually teachers finished all three years’ content in the first two years, and left an entire year to review the things we’d learned. During that year, P.E was cancelled to save time. Life can pretty much be summarized as a rotation among classes, exams and homework. No dating is allowed, because dating was thought to be irresponsible. Many students like school days a lot more than vacations, because during vacations homework might triple or quadruple.For me, reading a magazine or novel irrelevant to the exams was a luxury that came with a cost – I might not be able to finish homework before 12am. My biggest craving was to stroll in the library, find an interesting book and read it, without worrying about how much homework my peers have done in the meantime. Emotionally, it’s very demanding for me because in my mind back then, my score defined my life and my future. I was very hardworking, but my score wasn’t stable. So I felt happy when I did well on exams, and depressed when not. As you can probably already tell, it was nerve-racking every minute.But I don’t really blame the rigid form of our college admission process. First, compared to 1960s or 70s when family connections determined whether you could go to college or not, our generation could at least have the control in our own hands. Second, I still tend to think this is by far the most fair way for college admission in China. If we ever replicate the US college admission system, who knows how much grade inflation and cheating will happen?Experimental High School attached to Beijing Normal UniversityHow much pressure did you feel from yourself or your parents or your schoolmates in terms of grades and performance at your school?I would say I felt the most pressure from myself since the start of middle school, when I started to realize that if I ever wanted to go to good school and get a head start, I would have to ace those exams. I didn’t see any alternative. Especially starting from middle school, when everyone gets ranked by their score of all major classes for both mid-terms and finals, those are the labels you have -- whether you’re top 10, top 30, top 50 (out of 400 students). Your classmates would ask you what was your rank from last mid-term. People who get high ranks will be praised and given small gifts during semi-year school meetings in front of everyone. This kind of system is a bit addicting: once you get ranked high, you want maintain the status, although it doesn’t always happen.My parents knew that I have already given myself too much pressure, and they always told me to relax. They travel with me a lot during summer and winter breaks to get away from the stress.Can you describe what you did in high school besides academics? Did your school try to get you to develop “soft skills”?As far as I remember, I have been to a summer camp in Europe, and a bio-research camp in Yun’nan Province. The summer camp was a three-week program in which a group of students from our high school went to the UK to take classes with students from other countries, and we then travelled in Europe. That was my first time abroad, meeting peers from Italy, Russia, etc. I was able to glimpse the lives of students in Western countries. The other research camp was a seven-day program where we followed professors at local botanical gardens to do experiments on wasps and figs.Yes I would say that we did develop soft skills . Our high school definitely tried to make us not just a bunch of good exam-takers, but also able to communicate, to do presentations, and to organize events etc. We have a lot of student clubs, for music-lovers, basketball (lots of inter-school student-organized games). Model UN was very popular. One student in my year created a Rubik’s Cube club and during that time period, you could see that almost everyone had a Rubik’s Cube on hand. We had a very active student council as well. The council of my year successfully persuaded school management to add tissues in bathrooms, which doesn’t seem to be a big deal in the US, but if you have been to China, you know that’s not common at all.That being said, most students still very focus on academics. As GaoKao is the only matter for college admission, everyone quits those extracurricular activities during the last year of high school. Most teachers and parents would agree, no matter how outstanding your skills are, if it doesn’t help much for GaoKao, and therefore you should set activities aside.You attended a great university in China, Renmin University. Can you describe what it was like both in and out of class? What did you think of the faculty? How big were your classes?Most people are smart, and incredibly motivated and driven at the same time. Just as every 18-to-22-year-old in the world, we want to explore what twe want to do in the future, especially when we’re all aware how we dwelled almost exclusively in exams and homework during high school. Many start to shift their focus to extracurricular activities and develop soft skills through all kinds of school events or business/public-speaking competitions. On the extreme side, some people focus entirely on extracurriculars or early-stage externship/internship, and feel it’s completely ok to fail one or two classes as grades don’t matter that much anymore. Of course, we have a significant number of students who’re determined to do a Phd and pursue academic careers. You can always find them in the library.Students in one major take the same major classes, and live in the same dorm (yea, no moving at all) throughout all four years. My dorm building has 11 floors with 50 rooms on each floor, and each room can accommodate 6 persons. A lot of people think it’s brutal to have six girls in one room, but we formed very close relationships despite all kinds of different habits. Especially during the first year, girls might chit chat until 3 am in the morning. Therefore, as you can imagine, people of the same major are very close to each other.Everyone has their major chosen since the beginning of college, so all classes are strictly divided into mandatories for your major and electives that are subject to category requirements. Usually most mandatories are only available to students of that major, and are structured with more condensed materials and more exams/presentations. Most electives are relatively easy and usually require only one final exam/paper for grading. Thus, a lot of students only attend the mandatories during the semester and cram for electives during the two final weeks. We even joke to ourselves that each semester should be just two-weeks long so everyone can do whatever things they want for the rest of time.Most professors I know in person are incredibly approachable and passionate about teaching. In our psychology department, we have a mentor system that matched up professors with students. We not only have opportunities to participate in their research, but also we could seek advice on career development. At the end of each semester, mentor and mentee would go out for dinners. It’s a very close-knit community, although this may or may not be the case for other departments at Renmin. The psychology department had only 20 students in my year, so many of my classes just have 20 people. Other electives could range from 30 to 300 students.Amy with friends at RenminDuring your second year at Renmin, you decided to apply to transfer to a university in the US. What made you want to do this?I have always had the idea of studying abroad for college, but it’s mainly because of the rigid system that burned me out and triggered the decision to continue my college elsewhere. I was a Psych major and became interested in Economics due to my volunteering with a micro-finance non-profit. Thus I wanted to learn more about Econ, but none of those ‘mandatory’ intro or intermediate level Econ classes were available to me because I was not a Econ or Finance major. If anyone wants to change their major or do double major, in addition to many other tedious requirements, they have to be either top 5% or bottom 5% of their department in terms of GPA. In my case, I had to be the first or the last of the total 20 students to qualify, but I wasn’t.In addition, during my first year, there were a whole bunch of mandatories under names of ‘Marxist Philosophy’, ‘Thought Cultivation’, ‘Military Theory’, ‘Modern History’. Some of them are the Party’s interpretation of Marxism or history, and some others are no-one-knows-what’s-going-on classes after the entire semester. In the end, you still have to memorize the textbook to pass the exam. Even though I like my friends at Renmin a lot, I didn’t want to spend my four year like this.How did you pick schools to apply to? How many did you apply to and why did you pick the one you did?As I was a transfer, I was quite determined to study Economics, I was looking for universities with relatively strong Econ programs. Other than reading each university’s website, inevitably I relied on US News rankings a lot. My cousin who grew up in the U.S,. and an educational consultant, also gave me a lot of general advice on Universities vs. liberal Arts Colleges, and, location wise, big cities vs. the countryside etc.I applied 12 or 13 in total and got accepted into 7. In the end my decision was based on the receptions hosted by each university. I went to the send-off party hosted by UVa in Beijing, where I not only found another student who was about to transfer from Renmin, but also a few familiar faces from high school as well. Everyone I talked to seemed super nice and friendly. I was especially inspired by an alumnus who transferred from Beijing University to UVa, and eventually ended up working as a consultant in Beijing back then. Her experiences at Beijing University was very similar to mine, and she talked about how choices available and how she was overwhelmed at the beginning. After the reception, UVa was the only school in my mind.Beijing send off party 2016Can you describe your experience at the University of Virginia? Was it hard as an international transfer student to adapt to the school and to the US. What was the biggest challenge?Believe it or not, during the first day of Intro to microeconomics, I almost burst into tears. For other students, it was another common class at UVa. But for me it was after days and nights of writing application essays, flying to Hong Kong for SATs and taking care of all school work at the same time.Besides freedom of choice with my courses, my goal was to see the other side of the world. Growing up in an atheist environment, I was very curious about was religion. I took a Tibetan Buddhism class, read the Bible and talked to Christians. No matter what decision one might end up with, all the discussions of what and why they believe as they do are priceless to me.Inevitably, I was influenced by all the internationals who want to get into the Commerce School and land investment banking jobs. I participated in stock pitch competitions and tried hard to sell myself at career fairs. Many students around me explicitly expressed their admiration to the ones who got internship offers with bulge brackets. Those internships were difficult to get and paid well. The whole new scheme seemed to be another pyramid which I had no clue how to get into. It was heartbreaking at first, but then I realized I didn’t even ask myself the question why I wanted to do this from the beginning. Since then, I have become more and more aware of peer influence.Meanwhile, I also volunteered with Madison House for the Albemarle county Post High program, to help those 18-22 year-olds with mental/physical disabilities. When one young lady who didn’t talk much but held my hands and sang a song, it felt so different. Later in my fourth year, I worked as a research assistant for a project with the education school, to help improve pre-k school teacher performance by giving them feedback on their instructional and social interactions. Watching at all those kids running and screaming was so much fun.The biggest challenge for me is that I had to figuring out my after-college plans while adapting to school and to the US at the same time. I transferred to UVa as a third year and my parents wanted me to graduate in two years due to various reasons. That means if I ever wanted to find a job after college, I would have to start thinking about internships for third year summer. If my plan was to attend grad school, then I had to prepare accordingly. Meanwhile, I was still in the process of learning what is pepperoni and what is salami. We had parties in China, using the broad definition, but girls rarely consume much alcohol and don’t need to dress up whatsoever. But many parties, at UVa, of course are different.Amy with friends at graduation dinnerWere the expectations from professors different from those in China. Did you have a mentor?All the professors I know in person are extremely nice, but personally I feel Chinese professors might not emphasize passion as much as U.S. professors do. I might be overgeneralizing, as there’s one dean in the school of natural science at Renmin who repeatedly emphasized to us that our major is not important because eventually it’s your ability to learn and your soft skills that matter. The reason why she said that was that many other students found they didn’t like their major but couldn’t switch because of the restrictions I mentioned. That logic makes sense to me since most people do not have choice anyways and this mindset would be the best to cope with that.As for a mentor, yes, I have one. She’s a student who transferred to UVA one year ahead of me. We started talking through email before I arrived and gave me a lot of help and support throughout my time there. We’re very close friends now.Did you make friends with non-Chinese students? Do you think other students had stereotypes about Chinese students? Did you have stereotypes about them?Yes, I lived with four housemates during my fourth year, and three of them are Americans. Even after graduation, we still visit each other when possible. I always feel one of the main points living and studying abroad is to know people of different backgrounds. Maybe at the beginning it feels really hard when you don’t speak the language well or not share many common topics, but it is always worth the effort to try. When I look back, I couldn’t be more grateful for all those kind people reaching out to me and supporting me.Stereotypes are always there and in my mind they exist for a reason. From a psychology perspective, I feel it’s a different term for categorization, which helps you learn fast while also probably making mistakes along the way, but stereotypes shouldn’t be blamed. However being an international, I have definitely feel the pain when I think I’m being stereotyped. Some things include but not limited to 1) Chinese only hang out with Chinese 2) socially awkward 3) nerdy people super good at math or computer science.At this moment, after staying in the US for five years, I would attribute most stereotyped feelings to either fallacies or failure of communication. Many Americans didn’t mean to stereotype anyone and feel the same level of frustration when they failed to engage internationals in their activities.Amy and her 4th year housematesHow do you think studying in the US has changed you?Over the past few years, passion became more and more important in my mind: Find your passion and follow your heart. I know this sounds clichéd, but I grew up in a system where everyone is taught to be persistent and hardworking, especially in unfavorable situations. This is something I still value a lot today. You gotta be able to deal with things you don’t like. But when you start to ask yourself, why do I want to do this? If not for fame, money or power, why do I want to keep doing this? Endurance itself is a good quality but doesn’t give you an answer. Passion should at least be a part of that answer. When you have repeatedly failed, and feel frustrated, passion is the driving force that helps you move forward.After UVa, you enrolled in one of the top ranked schools in the US, Washington University. Can you tell us why you wanted to do graduate work and why you chose Wash U?From my experience above, you could probably tell I didn’t have enough time to figure out what I wanted to do. I sensed I might be enjoying more quantitative stuff but didn’t know any specific directions to go in. So I wanted to give myself a bit more time to think and to explore, while equipping myself with those quantitative skills at the same time.Other than the name, I really like the flexibility of the Masters program. Students in this program are allowed to enroll in any undergraduate or graduate level courses as long as we have all the prerequisites, which serves my goal well. In addition, I was also curious about the Midwest of the U.S. Moving from the East Coast to the Midwest felt like a little adventure.Can you tell us about your graduate course of study and how it differs from undergrad?It’s a Master of Finance program, with a quantitative focus. So it has the typical finance courses like accountings and corporate finance, giving me a big picture of how to evaluate a company. But it also teaches things like stochastic calculus, Black-scholes, and how derivatives are priced. In addition, it also has a object-oriented programming course, which is my favourite. I was once the person who was so scared falling into the stereotype people have for Asian internationals -- double major in Math and CS just to get a job -- and therefore stayed away from those programming courses. But how does that make sense? In the end I enrolled in two more programming courses besides the requirement, one for algorithm and the other for prototype development.In terms of lifestyle, it’s still a course-based program. I don’t see much difference, other than everything is focused on just one field.Washington UniversityThere are many who believe that it is almost impossible to get a job today without doing internships. You have done a number of internships. Can you describe them and also tell us how you got them?Internships were very important to me as an international who desperately wanted to find a job, but looking back now, I’m not quite sure whether internship is the best way to figure out one’s passion. Maybe I was trying so hard simply because everyone around me was either hunting internships or had one already.My first internship was with a small VC/PE firm in Beijing and I got it through family connections. This firm invests in small-to-medium-sized private firms in a number of different industries. I mainly did research on the demand and supply of a mineral, which China exported to US. I absolutely learned a lot through this project, but more importantly, I learned through talking with directors during lunches, coffee breaks, and training sessions. I became more and more aware that the directors make decisions not only based on market and accounting analysis, but also on personalities and the capability of the business owner, which is not something I could tell immediately as a college student who doesn’t have much real world experience.After I started school in St. Louis, although I enjoyed all quantitative courses, those are really just tools. I still needed to see what things I want to do with those tools. With that goal in mind, I started the second internship with a general contractor in St Louis, which I found in Wash U’s job listings. My responsibility is to take information from receipts, and to analyse whether the prices have seasonality or are pertinent to any specific sub-contractor. Similarly, I got my third internship with AEI though Wash U job listing as well, doing data analysis on housing markets. In the end, I kind of feel many people don’t assume you know much for one particular area, and they’re willing to teach you as long as you’re motivated enough.The last internship you had, at the American Enterprise Institute led the way to a job offer. Can you describe how this worked?Intern and full-time recruiting is kind of parallel to each other. I am not sure about other departments, but in Economics, there’s a fixed number (about 15) of RAs who usually start in the summer, stay at AEI for two years on average and then move onto grad school or for other jobs. While in each year the research interns are recruited for three terms, spring, summer and fall, with about 40-60 interns in each term. I was told during my interviews that about 5% interns end up with a full-time offer. I know a few RAs who did their internship at AEI, but most RAs didn’t.The duration of the internship was the intern’s choice -- usually 8 weeks. Although I was asked to stay for an extra term because there was too much work, I didn’t get an offer immediately after my 14-week internship. There wasn’t an opening for the team. Later on in October, HR emailed me about an opening position with the Open Source Policy Center. I went through two-rounds of phone interviews, flew to DC for a few onsite interviews, and then got the offer. I guess I have shown effort during the summer, and got really lucky.You work at one of the most famous think tanks in the US. What is it like and what do you do?Both scholars and assistants are incredibly passionate and motivated at work. Some scholars comes to work at 5 a.m. You can find RAs working hard at their desks during weekends. Many of the scholars are the most experienced experts in their fields. A lot of times when you overhear a ‘rant’ about one policy in the office, you’ll see this opinion showing up the next day on Washington Post. When you feel tired at work and need a break, you go upstairs and might find an event where Sheryl Sandberg or Melinda Gates is giving a talk.I work for the Open Source Policy Center, and my job is to help develop open-source quantitative tools for policy research. All the models are completely transparent and freely accessible to policymakers and researchers. We have been working on a microsimulation model of the US individual income tax system. Right now I have switched my focus to welfare programs, trying to see how feasible it is to connect machine learning and marginal tax rates estimations.Feel free to read more about OSPC from this WSJ editorial and our website.AEI is known for its focus on Politics. Are you one of the few international people who work there? Has working there affected your view of politics in the US or in China?There are a good number of international scholars and RAs, but most people are Americans.Definitely my views have changed. I have been able to see more dimensions and aspects on many issues. For example Beijing started heavy censorship on knives after a series of stabbings. My parents felt it’s totally fine to restrict this freedom even as that means they have to show their IDs in order to buy a kitchen knife. They were completely puzzled by the Senate blocking gun control proposal. I won’t say I fully understand, but sort of see where both sides come from and enjoy reading people’s opinion a lot more than before.What do you think are the skills sets students must have if they wanted to pursue a career path similar to yours?I think motivation and interest are more important than anything, but skill wise, I would put econometrics (or stats in general) and communication as essential skills.AEI report: Chinese investments in the United States*****************************************************************Amy, dressed in her elementary school uniformI have read thousands of pages on the topic of education in China, but I think that Amy captures in a clear, concise way the atmosphere that highly motivated students live in in secondary school and university. Amy’s high school, Experimental High School, is one of the most famous in China. It is exceptionally selective to get into and, as she so well describes, it is competitive in ways most schools around the world are not. Her school, like other top schools in China is doing two quite different things to prepare students for university. On the one hand, they prepare students to take the Gaokao, arguably the hardest entrance exam in the world. In addition, they are also helping student learn how to learn—to develop soft skills--rather than just instilling the ability to memorize immense amounts of information. Students who come out of schools like this tend to do exceptionally well at whatever university they attend. Amy is a case in point. Some might say the pressure is far too great and the sacrifices students have to make in life (no dating, very little time off, even when school is out etc.) are too great a sacrifice. This in not an issue that can be addressed adequately in a sentence or even a book, but it is worth noting that the competition students face has increased dramatically over the last decade.Amy also demonstrates what highly selective schools and great companies and businesses look for—curiosity. She has sought out schools, places to live, and friends that stretch her views and skills. The way she found the internship at AIE was through her own initiative and the way she preformed well and was offered a job should serve as a great example of what it takes to find an opportunity that is highly coveted. Amy is, I think it is fair to say, special. I have not heard of an international student getting a job at AEI before, so her abilities both as person and an employee are remarkable. But her story also underscores that hard work and ceaseless effort leads to great things.The cliche, "you've come a long way" seems worth rehearsing here. Amy demonstrates literally and figuratively how far a highly motivated person is willing to go to prepare themselves for future success. Does this prove the world is getting smaller? For most people, our ability to travel and move quickly from place to place makes the world more accessible, more open than ever. On a given day, we can travel to almost any place in the world. In terms of geography, many of us have been to places our parents never would have dreamed of visiting. Many students now come to college not only having visited many cities in their own countries but also having a passport stamped with multiple other countries too.But I would argue that the world is also getting much larger as well. The ability to travel almost anywhere coupled with the ability to communicate instantaneously across the world opens up access-- face to face, by Skype, text, WeChat, Facebook etc.-- daily, hourly and at times minute by minute, second by second. When it comes to reaching out, literally or through social media, the world is small indeed. But this access also means that the competition for what are perceived to be valuable and limited experiences has become global. For example, students who now wish to attend highly selective schools in the US (or many other countries) must stand out among the top students applying from all over the world. More students apply to top schools than ever; in some cases applications have risen by more than 50% in less than a decade. The spaces available, however, have not grown, and so the percentage of those offered admission falls each year (Stanford led the pack last year at 4.7%). Global competition translates into living in a much larger world, where students from Wyoming compete with students from Chile and China, Kansas and Kyrgyzstan, New York and the Netherlands. Students who want to stand out can learn a great deal from Amy. They should be willing to work hard and to seek out the academic opportunities that will prepare them for an internship and job. And they should be prepared to search for jobs in ways that go far beyond what the career services office posts on a website. Amy took the initiative—a character trait that predicts success in and of itself. Amy represents the way the people hitting the job market need to be—mobile, flexible and willing to take on challenges -- both academic and cultural. I would like to thank Amy for giving us all a primer for the way students need to approach the big and small world we live in.On Top of the World: Amy and Friends Last Month