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Okay
Let's get into this
We're going a deep dive
Today looking at a career path
That's well pretty radical
It really makes you question a life about success
You know practicality education right
We're following someone who went from financial engineering in shanghai
Superintense very uh utilarian heah all the way to westerard art histstory new york city a complete shift and the real kicker
The thing that just grabs
You about this whole story
Ory is his advice looking back after all that change all the effort to get away from finance his advice to his younger self finish the finance degree
That's the twist isn't
It makes you stop and think totally
So our mission here is to unact that why why go through all that achieve this like humanistic ideal at columbia
And
And say actually maybe stick with the original plan
Exactly
And we're drawn this from a really detailed interview
Um conducted by chelsea had maps out this whole journey
So who we talking about
We're talking about someone who is started as a top science student in shandonong province in china
You know super competitive environment like yeah chanonongs known for that driven by all this external pressure right
But he ends a completely rethinking what education
Even is it becomes this clash between like pure utility and something more humanistic
We felt the system he was in the university
It promised something big like a map for life right
But we'd actually delivered felt more like just tools tool for a job right
The gogowas get into a big four accounting firm make maybe five thousand rmb
Starting salary that kind of thing and that gap
That feeling of is this all there is that really drove the whole transformation
Okay
So lerewind phase one
The utilarian path and the um
The build up to breaking away
Yeah
The disillusionmet
But first you really got understand the pressure cooer
He started it right sentencing
This is two thousand and five shadodoon
The alcow
The big college entrance exam is nenotoriously tough there
And he was in the science experience public in class were talking top one hundred students elite well okay
So high pressure from the start unbelievable pressure and the schedule
It was design for one thing results get up at five thirty in the morning
Five point thirty
Oh
Yeah
Studies street through titill ten it night mandatory classes on weekends
It wasn't about exploring ideas
No sounds like pure output maximize exam scores exactly education as just delivery mechanism
When you're seventeen under that kind of system choosing a major
You probably play it safe er he do
And that's what happened financial engineering
The logic as he admitted later was pretty simple finance equals
Money engineering equal science seem like a solid respectable choice practical the perfect blend of safety and maybe prestige
But then he gets the university in shanghai
And reality hits instantly he just found it boring that was his word
The whole atmosphere was just transactional
Also so all about solid internships
Future salaries
Not you about actual learning or intellectual curiosity
It was pure curreorism
Okso the didisilluvement starts early
Yeah
What was the breaking point
Was it the hard math
The finance theory surprisingly know it was a counting class accounting
Yeah
He called it mechanical and most imagination breaking it fell like the total opposite of what higher education should be about like just learning rules and procedures
Know why exactly no soul and this led
This deep feeling
He called hh one me
Which means it's more than just being bored to fed up
It's like profound disillusionment ment
It's realizing the whole system promised this grand vision
This way to understand the world
The map for life
Right but all it gave him were standardized ledges
Predictable mechanical outcomes
That really had home for anyone who se felt best underconnect
You know that search for meaning for context
Yeah
And getting just a process manual back but a learning a profile
Precisely you want the way
And only only give you the how and that empty us
That who want me created this desperate need for something out
It's hesets up phase yeah
Ah big pivivot believed into the unknove yeah
The radical shift and the catalyst most rananddom heonly a tratrato geiltea friend hands him an article
It's about liberal arts colleges
Alases
And that article calls them the world's best underundergraduate education
Wow
Just like that on a train pretty much
She said he basically decided right than in there hopped off the knowing
He had a change direction
So what was the big appeal
What what the lasse's offer that was so different
It was the absolute opposite of the specialized chinese system
He was in l ase's champion general education
But the broad foundation exactly no whole years exploring different fields before you have to pick a major
He took like eight different sujejects
Freelogy
Geography
Political science
Ah h so fredom inintellectual freedom to explore that's what he was craving
But and this is crucial making
This sleep wasn't easy
It was incredibly high sticks
Why that well his background
His parents were middle school teachers
Working class
There was no family wealth to fund the stream
So he needed money
Serious money
He needed a full scholarship
It was the only way
No scholarship no sticks
Okay
That had another layer of intensity
And how did he even manage the application process
That's the other amazing part
He did it completely diy do it yourself no consultants
No help no buying pirated satp prep books
Travelling
Actually having to leave mainland china
Go to hongaaoaor just just to take the sas and other tests
Wow
The sheer determination you have to admire that absolutely
It shows how badly he wanted out of the system
He was in
And the biggest gamble of all he just walked away from his shanghai degree after two years of work completely abandoned dropped out
It was a powerful statement against what he called utilitarianism
He even quoted something like man has established only by breaking the existing structure
This incredibly bowl almost reckless
He could say oh
Totally he admits it himself in hindght called it stupid
Because he had its zero ackup plan
If that scholarship depenant come through who knows he describes himself as extremely lucky it worked out
Which he was
It was this total leap of faith driven by idealism
An idealism that's incredibly paid off as 嗯嗯
Which brings this deface three
He gets this scholarship goes to the us
It ends up in our histstyeah
Our histstwhich again was kind of a rebellious choice
Right right
So we'll think about his peers just high achieving chinese students going abroad
Many were probably still aiming for you know mattheicon wall street the practical paths exactly
But he chose our histstwhy yeah
Simply
Because he loved it
He said i want to do it
Well
That was the motivation mastery passion
And that passion led him all the way to a ph d like columbia and a yeah a direct phd program
Which he described mocolerfully as like eating a big fat person in one bite okay so intense very demand
Extremely and highly specialized work too he ended up focusing on art exchange between china and history
During the southnastong and you on dynasties specifically than monasteries
It sounds incredibly
Niche and difficult
It required a huge commitory
He actually had to take a whole year off
Just to learn japanese properly
But you're just for language
Yeah
Before he could even start his field work in japan
Which took another year that's serious dedication of the subject okay
So he reaches the pinnle right phd from columbia in his chosen field the academic dream
But then another shift
Another shift
He decided not to pursue the traditional tenuure track professor ship
Why not after all at work he found the acdedec system itself the competitiveness
The pressure
He calall it painful
He realized
He didn't need the title the tenenor track to stay connected to his passion
He could continue engaging with art histstin other ways
What does that look like now
What t's he doing ing
Now he's a full time lectures
Also at columbia teaching core western art history classes
Still teaching that maybe art hiterms
Exactly
And he teaches using the sycratic method very interactive
Oh
Exactly like it's just lecturing that finds ds it headisdiscussion deate small classes
But if just two students total
He gets them really talking about the art
That sounds like a the filling way to teach especially for students who might not otherwise engagge with art
That he finds it incredibly meaningful many of his students are say prelaw or heading to finance for them
This might be their only art histstory se ever
So it's a chance to share that beauty
As he put it right
A chance to make them really look and think diffeasses
But if just first semester he forces them to debate why a peematmatnot just memorized facts okay
So intellecally meanant with it on a good spot
What about the practical side life new york city uh
Yes
The reality check the worklife balance excellent
He says he basically works about two days
A week
Two k
So re's a lot of time for museums reading exploring other interest
Heis even thinking about what is next career transition might be that freedom is huge
That's hurt up there's always a bloot especially in nyc
But the pay it's low by new york standards
He mentioned that blumber garticle
You know the one
The one
This is a hundred dollar in new york
Feels like thirty six k elsewhere that's the one
So the freedom comes at a very real financial cost
It's a conscious trade offhe's okay
So let's try and synthesize this we follow this incincdible al c whais the next big take away about making these kinds of life choices
Well one piece of wisdom that comes through is about dealing with uncertainty
He said
Something like you can't find all the information
You just make the best traal it the informamation can can mter up that explains the initial leaak right act on what you know even if it's incomplete
You take the risk
Exactly justifies that necessary gamble early on
But then comes the twist
The hindside knowing everything
He knows now the fulfillment
The struggles the financial reality
Why tell his seventeen year old self to stick with financial engineering
That's the puzzle right
And his explanation is really insightful
He talks about shetting that youth full almost ideological rejection of the practical world
He used the term can go
Which means kind of snobish h so offright just just sort of yeah like looking down on finansjust making money just because of felt boring
Or because everyone else was reached well dense that now is isescauum
So the idealism that fuel the escape um
He now sees its limitation um exactly he realizes that rejecting utility just on principle was maybe missing the point
Now he thinks well
His quote was something like if you can both make money and have a humanistic passion is that that great integration not rejection find a way to have both that seems to be the mature perspective
He reached well choose one when you might be able to integrate
Which leads to his ultimatic device
Yeah
Final synthesis don't deny anything too quickly
If you have the chance to learn something
And you are already doing it than do it well
Even if it's accounting class
Even if it's accounting class don't just dismiss it
Because it doesn't feel like your passion right now master it anyway integrate it don't just abandon things whole sale
So the final thought for you
The listener
This whole journey started by moving away from the practical towards the highest academic ideal
But it ended with an appreciation for um
With the chinese call ranangin yanwwa the smoken fire of mortal life
The every day of the practicticalities right
So the question becomes how do you balance your own ideals
Your passions with the necessary griit in utility of everyday work in life is fulfilment
Found by eskeeping the practical or perhaps by learning how to integrated it
Even the ty you once wanted to reject something to think about
