After "landing", Ji Lei | life | problems

Go ashore, go ashore.

In recent years, many people have made every effort to travel to the other side of their imagination, such as being admitted to prestigious schools, successfully taking postgraduate entrance exams, and successfully taking public service exams. But few people ask, what happens after landing?

"After the Golden List: The Mystery of the Differentiation of College Students' Pathways" attempts to answer this question. This year, as soon as this sociology book was published, it quickly entered the public eye and sold out at one point.

The author Zheng Yajun grew up in Zhangye, Gansu and studied at two prestigious universities, Fudan University and the University of Hong Kong, for several years. Since conceptualizing her master's thesis in the summer of 2014, she has been constantly pursuing a question - why do students from disadvantaged backgrounds, even if they enter the best universities, still face significant disadvantages in their graduation prospects and career prospects?

As research deepens, the contradictions behind the problems gradually emerge. The tension between the "ability to understand oneself, establish life goals, and plan" required in higher education and the "logic of exchanging high scores for good life" retained due to inertia in basic education has become a perplexing issue for many college students.

The questioning of "who I am" and "what I want" always accompanies people throughout their lives. The university era may be the most suitable opportunity to answer these life questions. Across the country, new students who have undergone the college entrance examination have already entered universities. We found Zheng Yajun, who had just completed her doctoral thesis, as well as the classmates she interviewed in the book, and attempted to discuss the methodology of attending university.

The habitual excellence that fails

After watching "Top of the Golden List", Li Jing was shocked. Relying on the inertia of being an excellent student, I have made great progress and entered a prestigious school through the postgraduate entrance examination. But before reading this book, she never thought about what she liked or suitable for.

Li Jing, who was admitted to a prestigious master's program a year ago, had a feeling of being deceived as she approached graduation. Previously, one only needed to measure oneself on the scale of an exam to find a position. But now, this ruler seems to be malfunctioning.

Li Jing was born in a small city in Hebei and has been a well behaved student since childhood. The equation between diligent learning and a bright future is gradually constructed and deeply ingrained in the mind during the learning process.

Since elementary school, she has internalized this evaluation system based on scores, and external recognition is closely linked to self-evaluation. She yearns for Little Red Flower, a hundred points, and praise from the teacher, the only way is to score higher.

After entering high school, the frequent exam pressure eroded her like a huge wave, and under the mental pressure, she began to suffer from insomnia. Before the college entrance examination, Li Jing experienced a mental breakdown, and the text on the test paper was like oracle bone script, which she couldn't understand. Her brain is occupied by various strange thoughts, unable to concentrate on solving problems. The first college entrance examination ended dismally under the tremendous mental pressure.

She still remembers the night she checked out the scores, feeling like the world was getting dark. Li Jing cried for three days and finally decided to retake her studies at a boarding school known for her hard work. My daily routine consists of listening to classes, practicing exercises, and eventually being overwhelmed by a sea of questions.

"At that time, there were many emotions that couldn't be digested, but I had to start learning immediately. I think this was too cruel," said Li Jing. She has never deeply thought about her future, only knowing that as long as she studies hard, the future should be bright and brilliant.

In Zheng Yajun's research, cases like Li Jing are not uncommon. Until being admitted to prestigious schools, many students seem to suddenly find themselves in a complex maze of paths. The thinking patterns from the era of basic education have been impacted in universities.

In "After the Golden List", Zheng Yajun believes that there is no "main path" or certain standard path in university life. It seems that there are various possibilities every day, but it also means that people in it need to constantly make choices and collect chips at the same time.

This is too unfamiliar for students who have only known to bury themselves in hard work since childhood. Many people have no way of knowing how many exits there are in the maze of university, what are the "game rules" leading to these exits, and what chips are needed for each exit.

Zheng Yajun summarized this dilemma as the failure of "good student scripts" in his doctoral thesis.

Zheng Yajun, who comes from a small town in the northwest, has also been immersed in a social environment known for his hard work since childhood. Before the age of 18, she had never questioned this atmosphere. "For children like us from remote areas, studying hard is like a necessary path and a necessary experience," Zheng Yajun said. In her northwest hometown, there is a sense of pride in hard work, as this model of hardship brings obvious good grades.

But her extremely tense mental state caused her to fail in the first college entrance examination. Afterwards, Zheng Yajun chose to repeat her studies and continue her asceticism as a student, making the most of her time. A few years after graduation, the details of her hard work still circulated in the school: doing an English question before going to bed during lunch break and memorizing vocabulary when using the restroom. Even if I get sick and go to the clinic for an intravenous drip, I am still learning.

"I tend to be careless in math calculations. In the college entrance examination, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division within two digits are all in vertical columns, and I don't do mental arithmetic. In order to leave time for vertical columns, I need to further shorten my thinking time." She tried every means to avoid mistakes in the exam.

In 2009, after experiencing the hardships of an ascetic monk, Zheng Yajun finally stood at the entrance of Fudan University. She promised her mother, "I will study hard.". But when she entered university, she found that her habitual and excellent study mode was no longer effective.

Cracking the Maze of the University

At first, the difficulties of college life existed in the new things around us: online course selection, college system... but soon a specific challenge occurred.

After the first semester of university, Zheng Yajun's grades can still rank among the top in the Department of Sociology. In the second semester, in order to solidify her statistical foundation, she chose the advanced mathematics course B in the economics department, but in fact, the training program only required the lower difficulty advanced mathematics course D.

This was originally a high demand choice for herself under the logic of a "good student", but it brought her the consequences of "seeking hardship on her own". I naturally couldn't understand the course, and I only got a C in my final grade. Later, when Zheng Yajun needed to spend a lot of time and energy to make up for the gap in GPA, she realized how foolish the decision was.

Because of this experience, she began to gradually realize why many students are pursuing the "Introduction to Course Selection" circulating on the internet. Behind the score, there are many opportunities and opportunities, which is one of the hidden rules in the maze of universities.

In middle school, Zheng Yajun once heard of someone who couldn't adapt to being dropped out after being admitted to a prestigious school. People around him believed that "this child didn't study hard and delayed himself," but few people questioned the reason.

But now in her opinion, everything can be explained. In college, once these children who have been studying hard with "good student scripts" make mistakes in learning, everything else will collapse like a domino, making it difficult to integrate into college life.

Li Jing, who was also admitted to a prestigious university after repeating her studies for a year, realized that everything was not as smooth as she had imagined after entering university. The pace of university learning also confused her, losing the feeling of being arranged and feeling at a loss for a moment. During the freshman guidance class, Li Jing asked the teacher how to study in college, but she only remembered the teacher saying "autonomy". She seemed to understand, but could only continue to grasp the "life-saving straw" of learning, continuing the path of listening to lectures, self-study, and exams, and maintaining her grades at the top of her grade.

During the summer vacation of her junior year, Li Jing decided to take the postgraduate entrance exam with the original intention of "improving her own competitiveness" and "seeing a bigger world", and successfully "landed". But this joy did not last long, and she once again fell into confusion.

Approaching graduation, the limited time forced her to decide on the future trajectory. She didn't know what the repeated "stability" from her parents meant. My desire to explore and work hard is no longer firm due to the harsh employment environment, and the future in my mind is still a blur.

On the campus of Fudan University, Zheng Yajun, who was studying sociology, experienced the same confusion. She gradually realized that this situation was not a case, but a structural phenomenon, but classmates who encountered difficulties often felt ashamed to confide in others.

As his senior year approached graduation, Zheng Yajun decided to delay graduation by one year. She wants to start her research from this dilemma of her own and figure out what kind of deception I have been subjected to.

The study used interviews to analyze students from two universities in the north and south. After chatting with over 60 students from different family backgrounds, Zheng Yajun divided their "patterns" of going to college into two categories: intuitive dependence and goal control.

Intuitive dependent students mostly have similar experiences as Zheng Yajun himself, coming from remote areas with average family conditions. After entering prestigious schools through hard study, they fall into confusion and can only rely on intuition and the inherent logic of their high school years to advance their college life. On the other hand, goal oriented students mostly come from families with advantageous backgrounds and are familiar with many rules in the "maze" of university at an early age. They consciously establish their own goals, plan their paths, and organize their college life around their own goals.

Two types of students in the maze

Among Zheng Yajun's many interviewees, Lin Yin and Ji Lei were the two interviewees who left a deep impression on her. They represent two typical cases: "intuitive dependency type" and "goal control type".

Representing intuitive dependence is Lin Yin, a girl from a rural area in Sichuan. She is the eldest of the five sisters in her family. Due to her parents working outside all year round, Lin Yin's educational journey has been very bumpy. After the first year of high school, he even dropped out of school and returned to campus with the support of his family. Eventually, he was admitted to Fudan University and became Zheng Yajun's younger sister.

After entering a prestigious school, Lin Yin was constantly impacted. She didn't know how to use a computer during the summer vacation after graduating from her third year of high school. She only bought a computer after coming to Fudan.

"At the beginning, I didn't even know what Word was," Lin Yin said. This kind of skill challenge brings more psychological inferiority. "My idea at the time was that I came to the wrong place and should go back and retake a university," he said

It wasn't until the summer vacation of her junior year that Lin Yin organized a research activity to return to her hometown. When she opened up and chatted with her classmates in a familiar environment, she realized that almost all students from rural and remote areas had similar moods as herself. "This is not my own problem," she finally let go.

Gradually, Lin Yin began to seriously consider the courses she wanted to learn and try to plan her life. But at this moment, graduation is already very close. Influenced by her original family, she is extremely eager to have her own house and home, so she decided to return to her hometown and choose to take the entrance exam as a transfer student.

Contrary to Lin Yin, Ji Lei, who is studying mathematics, is a typical "goal oriented" student with a very clear logic on how to attend university. In his view, many academic achievers are simply "habitually excellent", driven by a sense of responsibility and effort, rather than really wanting something.

"Some people think clearly about what to do and then work hard, while others think that I need to work hard and then think about what to do." Obviously, Ji Lei himself belongs to the former. And this kind of thinking method has been growing since middle school.

Ji Lei is from Shanghai and comes from a well-off family. He graduated from a top high school in this city. In his high school career, he never experienced hard work. "In the third year of high school, just like in the first and second years of high school, everyone should still play basketball after class. School ends at three or four o'clock on Friday, and you won't be allowed to come for extra classes on weekends," Ji Lei said.

At his high school alma mater, all students' grades are deliberately lowered to encourage them to explore more areas that can prove their abilities.

"At that time, the papers in our school were very difficult. Before the college entrance examination, everyone didn't know if they could pass. The teacher's evaluation criteria were very strict, and as long as you made one mistake, you would make all the mistakes. However, the college entrance examination was not like this," Ji Lei said.

In some classrooms, teachers are also inspiring students to think about questions like "what should I do?". Ji Lei still remembers the first class of high school politics, where the teacher talked about "what is law".

"The teacher told us that people are born with the right to live, kill, and plunder, but in society, everyone must relinquish some of their rights to become a member of society. Therefore, everyone gives up bullying and becomes a part of society. When you agree with all the social rules, you become a negative and free person, and others tell you what you can and cannot do. But if you want to become a positive and free person, you need to tell yourself what you can and cannot do."

During his college years, Ji Lei always explored his own boundaries. In his sophomore year, he served as the vice president of the student union. In his junior year, he started his own business but failed. He returned to continue his studies. In his third year of college, he did not choose courses for entrepreneurship. After a one-year extension of his fourth year, he chose to apply for graduate school.

In Zheng Yajun's interview records, Ji Lei believes that only those who have experienced a rich life can know what they want to do. "Following a routine is not a good thing. Many people only think about what I really want when it comes to making decisions. Everything in college is arranged for you by others, and if you just obey and don't take the initiative in life, you will never know what you want."

Lin Yin was like this, not knowing exactly what she wanted, so she was pushed onto the job.

After graduation, Lin Yin passed the selection of selected candidates and obtained a job as a civil servant. Compared to her classmates, Lin Yin's employment prospects are not very promising. "Our best choice at that time was to go to an Internet factory." Lin Yin remembered that that meant high salary, dignity and being able to stay in Shanghai.

Moreover, due to the institutional reform of the government system, Lin Yin, who could have obtained positions in the urban area of Chengdu, was assigned to work in counties and cities under the provincial capital. In the social evaluation system at that time, this was a relatively mediocre way out for students from prestigious schools.

In contrast, Ji Lei's first job once made many peers envious. In 2016, Ji Lei, who was close to graduating from graduate school, held multiple job invitations and ultimately chose the position of investment trader at Citibank. This is the direction he anchored after experiencing several trial and error.

The reason for making this choice is that he always clearly wants to become an "interesting person". He understands the significance of trader work as viewing money as a tool that can serve his judgment of external situations.

"As a trader, buying stocks is essentially a vote, and putting money into this company as a vote is the essence of finance." Ji Lei believes that such work can be called "interesting".

Establishing one's own philosophy

The reporter met Ji Lei 7 years after he was interviewed by Zheng Yajun.

Due to macroeconomic policy adjustments, foreign banking business has begun to shrink. After one or two years of employment, Ji Lei switched jobs to a Chinese investment group. When we first graduated, foreign investment may have been better. But now the world has changed. Time has changed, and he doesn't feel anxious.

"At least when I was young, I did a lot of things that made me feel that there are many possibilities in life. Don't stick to one path," Ji Lei said. Now he has already achieved an annual income of one million, but still feels that many of his peers are more successful than him.

What is a successful life? In "After the Golden List", Zheng Yajun gave a more subjective definition - to obtain the choice you want. This also means that on the long journey of life, it is difficult to easily determine whether one has succeeded at a certain point. Lin Yin's experience can also serve as evidence.

At first, in the position of a civil servant, Lin Yin was very uncomfortable, "it took about a year to understand the basic knowledge within the system of department level, department level, and bureau level.". Because her job mainly involves writing official documents, Lin Yin spends many nights in the office, constantly revising.

Fortunately, life is not a sprint. Gradually, Lin Yin began to find feelings in her work. "Once, when I was working on a project, I applied my knowledge from sociology classes and provided valuable suggestions through data analysis. I gained recognition from my leaders and gradually gained confidence."

The department where Lin Yin works is the Policy Research Office, mainly responsible for writing articles for city leaders. "The work I do is closely related to government policies, and even if a small part of the documents can truly be implemented, I feel a great sense of achievement," she said.

After 5 years of employment, Lin Yin was successfully promoted to the provincial party committee through her own efforts. Now, she is able to independently carry out some research projects and is full of enthusiasm for her work. Going to the countryside for research, Lin Yin learned about the difficulties faced by villagers in using tap water, which effectively reflected the problem and was quickly resolved. "I think my work can really help some people, which is very meaningful," she said.

"Until now, I still believe in the principle of 'heaven rewards diligence', and can only believe in such simple principles. After all, someone like me who is bare handed only has one hand left," Lin Yin said.

In Zheng Yajun's research, she categorized cases like Lin Yin as "value submitters". Despite being limited by their initial background, they were "intuition dependent" students with limited planning and clear goals in university. However, due to the "selected and transferred students", "guaranteed graduate system", "volunteer teaching projects" and other measures implemented by prestigious universities, they ultimately found their own coordinates in later life.

In the later doctoral research stage, Zheng Yajun no longer focused on discussing the graduation path, but incorporated a more macro perspective into the research.

"Some of my interviewees have mentioned the concept of 'spatiotemporal compression effect' to explain why they have to endure so much pain," Zheng Yajun said. "Space time compression" is a sociological concept. In the late 1980s, American scholar David Harvey proposed that it refers to the path that developing countries have taken over a long historical period of developed countries in a short period of time in the process of catching up and leapfrog development. Compared to developed countries, time and space have been compressed. This usually brings a series of impacts.

"This sociology student likened his experience in the process of upward mobility to the pains that must be experienced during the period of social transformation. From a farmer's child to a prestigious school, he would inevitably face a series of impacts." Zheng Yajun believes that this interpretation has some truth.

Among prestigious schools, students from different regions and family backgrounds have vastly different perceptions of attending university. Zheng Yajun attributes this difference in part to the rapid transformation that society is undergoing, as well as the varying levels of awareness and cooperation among different groups towards this transformation. The more belated the group is in this transformation, the more inclined they are towards an intuitive dependency pattern during their college years, and the more difficult it is to adapt to the "game rules" of the market.

Zheng Yajun believes that the question of "what do you want to do in the future and what kind of person do you want to become" is a question that must be answered in college. Even if the answer is not so clear, the process of thinking and trying is also extremely valuable. Only by truly starting self exploration can one understand the rules in the maze of university.

"The first step is to step into this game. As for deciding whether or not to play this game, how to play it well, and how to connect this game with your inner value and sense of meaning, these are the issues that need to be solved later," Zheng Yajun said. Only by questioning oneself can everything be put into operation.

In her doctoral thesis, she focuses her research on a smaller point, treating these students who cannot understand the "game rules" as cultural marginalized individuals, attempting to measure their hidden cultural struggles, and trying to understand why these struggles arise. The ultimate question she focuses on is: since this cultural barrier is linked to one's background but not predetermined, how can it be overcome?

"Firstly, there needs to be a word that makes it tangible," Zheng Yajun said.

She found a proprietary academic term - cultural struggle - to observe and understand the impact, difficulties, and confusion faced by underprivileged children when they went to college. She is trying to call on more people to be aware of this issue and is also trying to build a youth mutual aid community that shares knowledge of game rules, contributing knowledge to people in the same situation.

"There are many ways to explain yourself, but no matter what, you need to establish your own philosophy," Zheng Yajun said.

"Among the interviewees I have met, there are also those who only want to be ordinary people and do an ordinary job well." Zheng Yajun said, "This classmate impressed me. He believes that ordinary talents are the backbone of social and historical development, so he willingly chose ordinary people."

At the reunion, Ji Lei found that one of his classmates went to a small company that was unknown when he graduated, but later because the company grew rapidly, this student has become a partner of a famous Internet company. Some students have put many people's dreams into action and opened homestays.

It's hard to say whose life is more successful.