Coming to the dinning hall a little late for the supper and staying a little longer(before 7:30), I can always hear different nice stories.  

The following are two of them.

One is from a 19 years old Chinese boy, who came alone to America to purse his high school four years ago, and now he is a rising freshman in Boston university. He is here in Yale to take some courses with no credits, just because he is interested in classes. He doesn’t like taking part time jobs or travelling around, and his father pays all the expenses for him. He tells me that all the Chinese students in his high school have been or are top ones, not having cared or caring about anything else besides courses, having been or going to prestigious universities in America.

They are intelligent young students, but I ask him the question,“Do we learn so hard just for the sake of learning”. A degree from a famous college is helpful, but it should not be the pursuit, the ultimate aim. After discussion, we agree that we spend so much money, come to a foreign country, labor on our courses to make ourselve a better-rounded person which may be a little tough in Chinese educational system. And finally we can do something good, even great for all the human beings. Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, so many of them had no college, but they did help man so much. There have been many Chinese who have graduated from first class universities in Europe and America so far, but they are mainly doing their business and making their money, no report about how they have helped change the world, or the country more or less. They are the first or the second generation of students studying abroad since 1980s, and establishing their own businesses and making their own money might be their first concern, for money is the foundation of life. But the new generation(basically the sons and daughters of the above wealthy generation) doesn’t have to worry about money, they don’t have to return their families(in money sense, I mean), what they should carry with is responsibility for the mankind, glory for their lives. Otherwise there is no need to go abroad to spend so much and take up such good educational sources.

Such a humble guy he is, and we share similar ideas. May him somebody one day!  This somebody does help to change the world, no matter how little the change is!