Month: September 2020

“Business School Chunyi.” This is the name I first register under in the dorm.

Honestly, I have never really thought about what it means to choose a major, or to pursue a degree.

The first day of school comes with heavy rain, just like the day the gaokao ends.

That day, I meet two girls. One somehow carries my luggage up to the third floor of the girls’ dorm by mistake; the other helps me find it later. I ride around campus on an electric tricycle borrowed from the property management office, searching everywhere. By the time I finally find my bags, I am the last person in our dorm to complete check-in.

Chinese universities inherit a lot from the Soviet system. The old “major” system is originally designed to train students quickly and send them straight into jobs. But now the job assignment system is long gone, while the confusion after enrollment remains. Many students arrive with blank faces, not knowing what they want. At most, they can tell by instinct what they do not want, and then make some kind of compromise.

From the first day, I start taking action. I apply to be the Youth League branch secretary. I join all kinds of clubs and departments. In high school, I was president of the student union, and in college I am still trying to find opportunities to perform myself. Life is strange.

Our college life is shadowed by COVID-19 from the very beginning. In 2020, schools across the country are locked down. Before the gaokao, most of us are basically taking classes from bed. After the exam, we don’t know how long the pandemic will last, but we don’t really care. College itself is already exciting enough.

For the first time, I’m in Ningbo.

Ningbo definitely isn’t like anywhere I have been. This seaside city is nothing like Qingdao or Xiamen. It almost feels like it has only two seasons, winter and summer. Surprisingly, it is even cooler than my hometown Quzhou. Since it is not trapped inside a basin, the weather is not stuffy, and the temperature shifts more noticeably between day and night.

And, the sunsets are really beautiful.

NIT is located west of Dongqian Lake in Yinzhou. I hear the subway is about to open soon. Before school starts, they say the campus covers 1,100 mu, but that number actually includes the Academician Park in front of the university. Without that, the campus itself is probably only around 800 mu. There are a lot of buildings packed tightly inside, yet somehow it still feels spacious. The gray walls and white pillars remind me of my middle school. Sadly, the swimming pool here is not open to outsiders.

I don’t miss home at all.There are four of us in the dorm. On the first night, we talk until eleven, and then I sleep very well.

This fall, there are more than one hundred new students in the communication major, most of them from Zhejiang. That number shocks me. University enrollment in China really is, in some sense, a business.

If I choose to work right after high school, I believe I can still find my own way. But family pressure, social pressure, and parents’ expectations make that choice almost impossible to take lightly. We study in order to gain more choices, and once we have those choices, we choose to keep studying. It feels like a loop.

I don’t care about money. I don’t care about writing some insanely great article. I don’t even care about becoming famous.I shall only write for something fun.