Just read a very good article from the New York Times, In China Families Bet it All on College for Their Children, about the high pressures on Chinese college students and the high stakes faced by their parents, who are largely responsible for putting the pressure on their children.
Many Chinese parents (such as the Wu's in the article) are willing to make extreme long-term sacrifices in order to put their children through college. They do this, in large part, relying on the idea that their college-educated child will get a good job and be able to support them in their old age. As a result, their children face extreme pressure from parents concerned for their own well being as well as that of their children.
Many of these parents come from a generation where higher education was not an option so they want for their children what was impossible for themselves. Also, due to their own lack of education, many of these parents blindly believe that college education equates to a good job (i.e., high pay) and good life. The reality, however, is that this is increasingly untrue - as the number of Chinese college graduates has skyrocketed, employment prospects (especially of the high paying variety envisioned) are diminishing.
I teach at a university in China and I see lots of students similar to Wu Caoying (the girl mentioned in the article). Facing huge parental pressure, different students respond in different ways. Some work very hard at their studies, hoping to get a good job or to do post-graduate study abroad (hoping this will get them a good job). Many others burn out by the time they begin college.
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| Chinese university students participate in an English speech competition |
In addition to parental pressure to study hard and get good grades, Chinese college students also live in an environment which is not of their own choosing. Almost invariably, their parents choose their major with little or no consideration of the child's interests or abilities. Of course, the parents believe they're doing the right thing by choosing practical majors such as engineering, finance or logistics management (like Wu Caoying's parents). However, I think many parents are blindly picking majors that they think will provide good job opportunities without considering that by the time their children graduate, things may be much different. Chinese universities having been mass producing engineers for quite a while now and I find it hard to believe that there will be an unlimited amount of jobs for all of them indefinitely.
Occasionally, students confide in me that they don't like their major or ask advice about what major to choose for a graduate degree. In response, I do what I used to do when advising college students in the United States - I ask them what subjects they're most interested in. I then suggest that they try to choose a major that they'll be interested in while also trying to be practical about job prospects. This advice, which may be god for American students who often choose majors solely based on their interests, tends not to work in China since students don't have any notion of self-determination. Due largely to the Chinese Confucian concept of filial piety, they have no choice, but to major in whatever their parents choose for them.
One trend that I'm seeing in former students who have graduated is that they tend to get jobs which are underpaid (especially considering the cost of college education) and they find unrewarding. This being the case, maybe the advice I give to Chinese college students really isn't so bad. If employment opportunities are limited and the number of college graduates continues to increase, it might make sense to major in something that you're really interested in. That way, even if the pay isn't what you (or your parents) hope for, at least you might still have a career that you enjoy and likely work harder at, and hopefully providing some degree of upward career mobility.
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