well, it all depends on how we define success (or the so called NN) in our lives, and I suspect the answer varies a great deal among ourselves. If anything, this whole biz school application process has only made me clear of one thing - that my past accomplishment does not guarantee future success. I bet almost all of us have been overachievers in one area or another. We just define achivement differently at different point of our career. As I was filling out endless applications, it was interesting to reflect on my college days. It was great to have graduated w/ this or that honor, or schoalrships, or what have you. But on the applications, they all became just a few phrases. The longer we have received our undergrad degress, the less significant those awards seemed (I'd hope they still mean something to the adcom, keep my fingers crossed). But what it's so true is that everytime we start a new phase of our lives, we start with a clean slate. In two years, we'll be starting once again with everyone on the same starting line more or less. Just because we are a NN in the past doesn't mean much. In ten years, no one is going to care whether I graduated from the top of my class. I'll stop babbling now. Seems like there is a tendency to become philosophical on Fridays I guess all I'm saying is, everyone has the potential to become successful in our own ways, academically, professionally, or even personally, The success of lives is the average score of all the above. It's the average that counts, not the individual score. And I won't even try to define happiness P.S. They are many cases like the girl in the original story. Academia in the US is an ivory tower w/ its own rules and style of competition. Many Chinese who have received sci PhD in the US have become VERY successful in the academia tracks, while others have not. Luck has a lot to do with it, as much as everything else. |