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“Students are particularly irreducible to their class of origin and even to their situation and their practice (which are always closely linked to their origin) because, as intellectual apprentices, they are defined by their relation to their class of origin, their situation, and their practice and, as aspiring intellectuals, they strive to live out this relation according to the models of the intellectual class, reinterpreted in terms of their own situation.”

— Pierre Bourdieu The Inheritors

In the previous section, I have revealed that different students have various understanding of Quality, and examined the factors that shape students’ understanding of the concept Quality before they got accepted by the colleges in the United States. Just like Bourdieu pointed out in The Inheritors, those informants’ understandings of Quality are shaped by their “class or origins, situation and practice”. Bourdieu conducted a research in 1964 on the relationship between education and culture in France, and came to the conclusion that despite the “acceptance of the same rules of university law, compliance with the same administrative formalities…queuing together to get into the library, suffering the constraints of the same syllabus…” it is still really hard to define this “integrated group” as a whole, since students are from various family backgrounds and have different experiences, which determine their life styles or choices of major (Bourdieu, 1964). Some of his findings include students from lower class are less likely to get into colleges, and are more likely to choose majors that are practical.

This study of Chinese students is more or less similar to this study done by Bourdieu 40 years ago, and Bourdieu’s study did explain how class origins affect students’

understanding of Suzhi. However, there are some aspects that are different: first, none of my informants are actually from lower class background. Although income level of families various, all of my informants are financially sufficient; second, the evaluation/assessment system for students are different. While the assessment for students in France during the 60s is purely based on test-scores (Bourdieu, 1964), the procedure in the United States for college admissions is different: according to the Admission Office of Stanford University, “The Department does not have a predetermined formula for weighing admission criteria, nor does it have any rigid cut off points on these criteria. All factors are taken into account and weighed by the Committee”. Here come the questions: now all the students are accepted to a top university or college in the United States, do their understandings of Suzhi change? Are their family backgrounds still playing an important role when they choose their majors? Are they playing on an even ground now?

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For the first question above, some informants answered “Yes”, while other answered “No”. Each of these two groups also falls into two situations.

Those who answered “No”--

First, there are two different situations for those who indicate that their understanding of Suzhi did not change after they came here. Informants in the first group told me that either their understanding was already very close to the American concept due to the

education they received at an elite high school in China, or due to previous western cultural exposure. Both the Northwestern students and William and Mary student from Shanghai told me that they thinks the standard for a “qualifying person” here in the United States is the same with her understanding back in high school. The Cornell student from Shanghai, who went abroad for a year during high school, told me that since she had lived in the US before enrolling, her concept of Suzhi did not change much.

The other group is those “science majors”—The NYU student and the UNC student told me “Science classes are universally the same”, and as a result, the US education did not change their understanding of Suzhi, even their own Suzhi too much. The main changes they experienced are from the foreign environment they are in. The UNC student, who is a statistics major, told me “By living in a foreign country, I improved my mental quality, independence, the ability of interacting with other people. But it seems to have no connection with the education I received here.” The NYU student, who is a mathematics and economics major, gave the following statement:

I don't think NYU ever changed students’ quality. The student body at NYU is very, very diverse… so quality is more relevant to family’s education. Some of NYU students have very bad qualities. Honestly, there are that kind of students at Fudan University as well. Also, I have heard that at Peking University, or even Harvard University, also have low quality students, so the correlation between students’ quality and school education might not be that strong.

What I found interesting is, statements from other students’ interviews can actually be used as counter examples here. The Yale student said “How the American education

shapes a student’s Suzhi all depends on how the individual takes advantage of the resources. Only going to classes or listening to lectures will not improve qualities. Even in social science or humanities classes, professors will not try to ‘moralize’ anyone or impose their ideas on students.” The William and Mary freshman states something similar: “There will not be any people telling you what you should do in college, which means that no one is going to ‘shape’ you. ” Another science student, the Stanford Student from Shanghai, also mentioned the idea of “Science classes are universally the same”. However, he has a different understanding on how the US education shape students’ Suzhi:

At Stanford…well, I will just put it straightforward: at least 60% of science professors give their first priority to research, and teaching is just secondary. After all, science principles are all the same in anywhere this world. Three out of five classes I am taking this semester are science classes, so 60% of my life is actually not that different from my friends back in China. But the most important things I learned are outside my major! Especially those humanities and social science classes.

Those who answered “Yes”—

Those who indicate that the American education changed their understanding of Suzhi, and helped them developed their Suzhi also falls into two situations. The first group of students provides answers like “critical thinking”, “open mindedness”, “skepticism”, “social responsibility” or “the consideration of other people.” The

Georgetown student from Beijing mentioned “skepticism” and “humanistic quality” during the interview:

Speaking of skepticism, we are taught to doubt everything we observe. Is that true? Why is that true? Are there any other possibilities? This is a form of critical thinking. The second thing, humanities atmosphere: all things we do, all things we see, after all cannot be separated from this human society. If we ignore this point, we would become cold machines that only produce data and codes, instead of being HUMAN. Colleges in the United States would more or less advocate these ideas, while the Chinese education is doing very superficial actions.

The UNC student from Zhengzhou, Henan talks about the idea of Social justice: Not all colleges…but at least those good colleges, like our school and other top schools, will try to bring awareness for social justice. They will tell you ‘this is problematic’, ‘that is problematic’ or just ask yourself to think again whether this issue is problematic. This is critical thinking.

The answers of the second group of students are different: keywords like “abilities” and “skills” appear frequently in these answers, indicating a very different orientation to quality than the group of students just described. The UNC student from Shanghai, who is a student at the Kenan Flagler Business School, provides the following answer:

US education taught me how to communicate with others. Although we sometimes have group projects back in China, but there was barely any cooperation or teamwork needed…People never think about improving these

qualities. But now, we need to learn to cooperate with people from different background, and come up with something serious…yeah that’s our final grade! The UNC student from Hebei provides a similar answer:

I think the most important thing is that US education provides me opportunities to communicate/work with classmates, professors, even professionals from workplaces. Not only teaching me theoretical knowledge, but improving my abilities of communicating and cooperating with people.

After comparing these answers to the content I have discussed in the previous chapter, which is the diverse understanding of Suzhi, I found out that those students who believe that the U.S. education does not change their qualities because “science classes are universally the same”, or the US education changed their Suzhi in a practical/skill oriented way, are those who have practical understanding of Qualities. In contrast, students who mention that their Suzhi have been improved in an abstract way, are those who have a non-practical understanding of Suzhi. Only one of them are exceptions: the Brandeis student from Shanghai now regards “having passion for what you are doing” as an important quality after coming to America, instead of being “ambitious, aggressive, result-oriented and sometimes even ‘unscrupulous’”, which was her impression of suzhi for successful business major students when she was back in China.

It seems that education in the United States does not have too much impact on changing students’ understanding of Quality, and if those students’ understanding of suzhi is still the same kind with that before they come here, then region, high school education, and mostly important, socio-economic class, are still the dominant factors that

shape students’ way of thinking even when students got into a top-college in the United States. One thing I need to mention is that not all informants are in the same year; some of them are graduating, and some of them had only spent 3 months in college. However, since only 2 among all informants are freshmen, and the situation of these two freshmen is consistent with the general observation, the conclusion should still be tenable.

Flexibility of Major Choosing

When I asked how is the US education different from the education back home, I got some frequently appeared answers from informants, even though they are from different backgrounds. “Freedom” is the No. 1 keyword among all answers, and many informants expressed their appreciation for the flexible course-registration/major choosing system here. The UNC student from Cangzhou, Hebei compares the difference between the American and the Chinese system and think the American education system provides him “freedom of choice”:

The US education provides students a wide range of choices. In college, there are plenty of opportunities for students to take classes in various departments, and extra-curricular activities are encouraged. These both are good for students to explore their potentials, and that is pretty similar to what we said ‘cultivating high-quality people.’ The education in China is inflexible, and having good grades is probably the most important quality. Everything could be standardized.

This statement is supported by other students’ answers. The Vanderbilt student from Taiwan said, “US education encourages students to learn whatever they want to learn, and US colleges provide whatever they can to meet our requirement as long as they have the ability.” One thing I found interesting is that even with the same answer “freedom”, students gave different interpretations for it. A Vanderbilt student from Hangzhou and a Brandeis student from Shanghai both mentioned the flexibility of choosing major. The Vanderbilt student gave the following statement when she was talking about the reason for choosing a philosophy major:

I am a philosophy major with a Political Science concentration, and I focus on political theory/philosophy. Before I came to college I never imagined myself studying philosophy, and my understanding was “Philosophy is so hard to understand!” just like other people. But later I took some philosophy classes and started to read some philosophical articles, and found them fascinating. I pick philosophy major was not because I want to pretend that I am super smart or erudite, but because I do find philosophy interesting.

In contrast, the Brandeis student, who transferred from Fudan University, gave a totally different description. She told me that with the freedom of choice here, she could easily major in economics, which requires high Gaokao score back home:

After I entered the Journalism School at Fudan, I was disappointed. My motivation has always been ‘to be in the same place with the most outstanding people’, but J-school students at Fudan did not meet my expectation. I started to hang out with students from other departments, and I

think Economics students are fun. That’s because students are assigned a major based on their Gaokao score, and Economics always has the highest cut-off line. So Economics students are those who have highest scores. That’s a motivation for me to go abroad and switch to Economics major. After I came here, I realize that in the United States there is no cut-off line for majors…you can major in whatever you want. Economics is the most popular major for Chinese students, and it’s not selective at all…so I switch to math major.

Possible factors that might change the choice of major

It seems that although the colleges in the United States grant students freedom to choose their majors, Chinese students still have criteria when they make their choice. Previous literatures argue that gender might be a factor that affect students’ choice of major, and that led to the under-representation of female in Business and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (Blickenstaff, 2005; Beasley, 2012), and a cross-table might be able to examine whether this statement is still tenable among my 22 informants:

Table 7: Association between gender and type of major

According to the table above, although the gender distribution of female is a bit skewed, gender does not seem to be a factor that determines students’ major. What is more, the classification of STEM in general might be misleading, since some of my informants are theoretical physics or pure mathematics, which do not prepare students to secure a job in industries like finance and business. Here I categorize the majors of those informants into two groups, one leads students onto a practical career oriented path, and the other does not. However, the result of the cross tabbing does not seem to have a big discrepancy from the table above.

However, I do notice one pattern when looking for rival variables between informants and the major they choose. After listing all possible rival variables, family income seems to has a strong association with the type of majors that an informant would choose:

Phi= sqrt (Chi2_{/22) = 0.524}

As a result, income has a positive correlation with what major a student is going to choose. This finding is identical with Bourdieu’s finding in his “The Inheritor”, and reveals that class of origin is an important factor that might affect how students choose major, even they are granted freedom to pick anything they want to learn.

Are Chinese students overly practical?

It is necessary to point out that the proportion of students of each type of major is not a good indicator for that of the entire Chinese student body in the United States, since many of my informants expressed the thoughts that Chinese students in the top schools are being overly practical. The Yale student from Changsha, Hunan, who is a history major, indicates, “At Yale, most of Chinese students are considerate and care about the society, but some of them are over practical.” The Northwestern student tells me that “Many of the Chinese students here are doing/will be doing investment banking/

major, is more straightforward. He complains about the frustrations he has when he tries to find friends to share ideas and thoughts:

Most of Stanford Chinese student are pursuing something that they can actually achieve in China…I can imagine that they are just living the same life back in China. You can copy-paste their life at Fudan University, and there’s nothing different…The most distinct feature is that they focus too much on those things that are right in front of them (most relevant to them). 80% of our conversation is talking about how to solve physics problems. It might because I am a physics major…but if I want to talk about a book that I just read recently, or what happened to my life, they would switch the topic back to physics homework after one or two sentence…So boring!!! We don’t talk very often, but when we talk, they only care about schoolwork…you know, Stanford is in the Silicon Valley, so everyone is so into Computer Science. Whenever we have dinner together, topics will always be ‘how to program’ and ‘how to code’. Well…you can do the same thing at Fudan, can’t you??

Interestingly, although being a Computer Science major, one Cornell student from Shanghai also expresses the same concern as that Stanford student. As a computer science major, she is frustrated by the fact that Chinese students she knows only care about practical things, and she finds American students more interesting:

(Chinese students here at Cornell are) very pragmatic. Well you can’t say that’s bad…sometimes liberal arts colleges are unrealistic, and we are not like them. In liberal arts colleges, students might want to learn as many things as

possible, and the purpose is probably to improve quality. However, students at Cornell might not want to do that…physics major students sometimes don't want to take humanities classes. Some of them have the intention to take these classes, but they are scared that these classes will destroy their GPA and hurt their chances of getting into a good school/ good company. They will try their best to make their future better, instead of doing something “useless”, like cultivating humanistic quality (laugh). That’s different from my purpose of