Jing Zhou, GMBA Class of 2017

The weather is getting cold in late autumn. Far away from Beijing in Boston, I was listening to a song once popular in China – The Past You – by Xu Wei. “Once you dream of traveling around the world, now you lead a wandering life.” It has been three months since I arrived in the U.S. From eager anticipation to early enthusiasm to stress and finally to calm – the whole process has been interesting and full of excitement.

My friends sometimes complain that I did not post many pictures or that I am no longer as active as I once was on WeChat. Actually, I am more than happy to share my every excitement – I took lots of pictures to record my life – but the only problem is, I! HAVE! NO! TIME!! My schedule has been divided into small pieces – from the time I wake up, I have to keep my engine running fast.

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Stage One – Everything is new, and I become a learning machine.

Harking back to a beautiful day in late August, I dragged three massive suitcases by myself and landed in the United States after a long flight.

Although I’ve traveled abroad several times, this version carries with it a different streak of independence and new tasks that come with actually living and studying abroad, from school registration to course selection to purchasing basic household items. When I lived with my family in Beijing, I never cooked. After I came to Boston, I took on new challenges with the new season of life. I not only immediately started cooking but also treated several friends and even became, dare I say, famous for my dishes and dumplings. All this served as a small reminder of our capacity for change and narratives of personal development in areas both large and small.

If I think of studying abroad as analogous to playing a video game, household chores constitute the junior level and can be easily solved with extra time, effort, or money. The more difficult levels, however, await: ordering food (need to learn the name of more complicated food and dishes), understanding the culture and logic, exercising independent judgment, being willing to voice disagreement in a non-native language, balancing your time and energy … the list goes on. I made some laughable mistakes (e.g., got lost on campus almost every day during the first week, mistook aluminum foil for cling wrap, and even mistook sandwich bags for a sandwich so that I had nothing to eat on a hiking day), but the school provided me with a safe and tolerant environment, with everyone around eager to help. At the same time, American people from time to time also made costly (to me) mistakes – they charged me full price for an item clearly marked 50% off; I received mobile phone charges that failed to account for my promised student discount. In navigating the challenges on my own, I not only saved several hundred dollars but also became equipped with problem-solving skills in a new context.

The local experience has been filled with plenty of intrigue. I experienced real hiking and camping in the mountains and often saw 3- to 5-year-old kids climbing independently. Parents in the U.S. tend to encourage their children to be independent. People are also extremely passionate about sports. My roommate jogs along the Charles River at 5:00 in the morning no matter how cold it is. Perhaps the most amazing thing here is that many super scholars are also super cool, balancing social life with a passion for their studies. I’ve read the resumes of and talked to several MBA students. Beyond the impressive work experience, some can speak 3-4 languages, some have been to 40+ countries, one operated an NGO in her spare time to help girls in Africa, and one even obtained a Ph.D. from MIT in physics and started his study at Harvard in theology. MIT’s environment is as open as it is diverse. Anyone can enter any part of the campus (except the gym and dorm), even the library and the entrepreneur incubator Martin Trust Center (complete with free drinks and food). Students can cross-register for classes in different departments and adjacent schools, so it isn’t unusual to find an engineering student who has rich knowledge in finance. I feel simultaneously lucky to be here and a sense of internal pressure to be a contributing part of this vibrant community.

Extracurricular life here is colorful. There are wide-ranging theatrical offerings directed and performed by highly capable students; eye-catching technologies and innovative entrepreneurial pitches; experience sharing and career talks from alumni; spiritual dialogues in the women’s club and the Sloan Yawn (a story telling event in Sloan to share your spiritual stories with hundreds of classmates); warm celebration of every holiday and event – everyone is dressed up for Halloween, devoted to sports and even sporting body paint jobs for cold, rainy football games … and the list goes on. All this is only a sliver of it all, but perhaps enough to share a glimpse of the passionate way of living I’ve observed and discovered.

Stage Two – Stretched and crazy for YOLO

I began to stretch myself from the day classes began. Every day, I was surrounded by cases, homework, group discussions, and lectures. Everyone is efficient. If you come to a group discussion without reading the case and being prepared to discuss, you will lose the respect of your peers. Even the classmates who may look like they are focused elsewhere have usually made surprisingly thorough preparation.

In order to balance my study and my life, I selected 5 subjects. Each course has two 90-minute classes every week. Although 15 credit hours didn’t sound like much, I found that for every class, there was a case waiting for me, and preparing for class usually took more time than the class itself.

Another chunk of my time was taken by club events – based on both career and personal interests. Career-related clubs have become a necessary weapon for job hunting. Take the consulting and finance clubs for example: almost all students who seek careers in consulting and investment banking will attend these two clubs. Second-year MBAs share their internship experiences and help first-year MBAs prepare for behavioral and case interviews. Alumni will host coffee chats, table discussions, and lectures to share their work experience and post-internship opportunities. Clubs even prepared a casebook for consulting and provided summaries and tips regarding the interview process. There were a variety of career treks to visit companies and provide networking opportunities with alumni. All the club events and conferences are student-driven, including the Asia Business Conference and the VC and Innovation Conference. In recognition of students’ time constraints, most smaller events are conveniently held over lunch or in the evening.

Given my own diverse interests, I signed up for around 10 clubs, so my lunch and evening schedule is always quite full. I even applied for leadership positions in two clubs. Our Impact Investing Club organized a career trek together with HBS and Fletcher, offering 60 students the opportunity to visit 12 impact investors. With the contribution of organizers and alumni, the club members find great benefit and in turn demonstrate great commitment to the clubs. In China, MBA programs have different features in student structure (part-time/full-time composition), internship hiring, and post-MBA career development. Current students, alumni, and external stakeholders in the U.S. all seem to share a trait of generosity and support. One of my takeaways: from students to companies, Americans appreciate intergenerational experience sharing. For education, government and schools provide strong support. Big companies like Google donate and contribute, for example, via EdTech products that can be used by students for free. My thesis advisor once ran a charity project called “One Computer Per Child,” to which Google donated several million USD without hesitation. Alumni are also generous in their donations, as resulting in such established venues as MIT’s Martin Trust Center incubator. The U.S. has all kinds of foundations and impact investing organizations, and people emphasize giving and paying back, even represented in such foundational elements as the tradition of Thanksgiving.

Besides club events, I found MIT’s resources to be vitally important in two other respects: job hunting and entrepreneurship.

For job hunting, it can be time consuming to tend to the many company presentations, job applications, and interviews. The Career Development Office (CDO) website helps students filter jobs based on industry and position and also offers timely notices on open positions. Several companies will arrange office hours and coffee chats on campus, and students can schedule their events conveniently through CDO website. When looking for a full-time position in the U.S., students find that companies take their first-year summer intern programs quite seriously, and many return offers will be given to their summer interns. First-year MBAs compete intensely to attain summer internships from the time of MBA program entry, and the competition is even stiffer among those who intend to change industries. Post-MBA positions in the U.S. are often those of Associate or Consultant, which is a good deal for younger graduates, and some people with substantial work experience also accept these jobs because of their relatively high salaries. One consulting firm recruiting associates with three to eight years’ work experience told me that I fit their requirement well. From my incoming perspective, three years would seem suitable for an associate, but given that I have worked for around seven years, returning to my former company as a senior manager would hold more appeal than an associate position. Still, a major benefit for early- to mid-career candidates in the U.S. is the relatively high salary and strong training system. It seems typical for Chinese female candidates to want to stay in U.S., whereas male Chinese candidates typically choose to return, and having substantial U.S. experience under one’s belt may also, interestingly, nudge one to return to China. The difference in culture, language, childhood experience, and knowledge structure can be barriers to integration in America, and it’s challenging but interesting to navigate that dimension. There are, however, ample opportunities to mingle with the Chinese community and develop in a China-related market.

With respect to entrepreneurship, Boston has a great environment, and MIT originates a great number of innovations. There are many startups, idea-pitch competitions, incubators, classes, and mentors to support students in putting innovative ideas into practice. Boston has the necessary technology, talented labor, and capital resources so that even people like me cannot help but start to think about setting up a business. Entrepreneurship classes are open to not only MBAs but also undergraduate students, engineering students, students from other schools in the Boston area, and sometimes even employees in the neighborhood. Students with diverse backgrounds and specialties get together to develop their own innovative projects. Whereas the U.S. may be advanced in generating innovative technology, China offers an advantage in its huge market and population. An app in the U.S. may find difficulty in achieving 100,000 users, while in Beijing it can quickly reach over one million. China has become a key market for entrepreneurs to consider, with all the opportunity that accompanies it.

Finally, I would be neglecting one of the best dimensions of life here if I failed to mention the social scene. Boston is a terrific city for both study and socializing. It is not as noisy as New York, but it holds a prosperous metropolitan area, surrounded by well-educated people and many peaceful and beautiful neighborhoods. There are several Wechat accounts and Apps to post all kinds of events in Boston, including good places to eat, exhibitions, sports events, shows, parties, etc. It’s your own fault if you ever get bored.

Reminding myself that You Only Live Once (YOLO), and I only have one year here, I was busy trying everything. Even though sometimes I have to sacrifice my sleep to handle all those colorful activities, the reward has been well worth the cost.

Stage Three – Finding balance after identifying priorities

Although I enjoyed stretching myself to try everything, it wasn’t sustainable. My Chinese classmates often discussed our feelings and experiences together. We realized that our humble character training made us aware of the strength of the others and consequently pushed us to work harder to catch up. However, in following others, we may often neglect our own strengths and original goals. After finding our respective focuses, we started to narrow our goals and cut down the extraneous events, appealing as they were. Some people narrowed their job hunt to Asia; some pursued their own start-up ideas in earnest; still others abandoned large-scale networking events in favor of more concentrated interactions. Life is a trade-off. Realizing that you cannot have everything can be liberating and efficient. When there are so many highly capable people around you, if you focus on what you don’t have, you can easily get depressed. I finally understood why we were introduced to psychology consolation and pressure-handling skills on the first day of orientation. But when I look on the bright side, I can always feel that I am learning and improving every day, and I feel so lucky to be here. Life is mixed with plenty of positives and negatives, but a positive attitude can make it more beautiful.

In closing reflection, I would like to revisit a comment from one professor in our opening ceremony. The general idea was this: there are thousands of students, and there are thousands of ways to succeed. Competition is not the only way to succeed, but by collaboratively supporting each other, you can all be successful in different ways.

The past you may not be perfect, but you can always be on the way to a better self. That is memorable.