I would say it was pretty good, but it's definitely not Harvard material.

I was a thief in my high school, out off 1100 seniors.

Um, I was the math team for two years in my high school.

I played lacrosse and I have schools.

Win first place, Second place.

I was organizing a concert master and student vice president.

I want personal awards in Science Olympiad.

Um, so I think this overall is pretty impressive, but it's not nearly as impressive as someone who should be getting into Harvard.

In fact, I applied to Harvard only because it was on the commodification, and I don't need to spend too much time on the application.

So I figured maybe I'll just felt application.

And then one day, maybe like today, I could tell people that I applied to Harvard, and that makes me sound really smart.

I don't know.

I got in, and so I figured, you know, I want to go and check out how Harvard is.

I went to Harvard.

There's this refreshing weekend for incoming students, and I met really cool friends.

I met a really cool people at Harvard and cool professors attended classes and classes seem really cool.

No idea what's going on sitting there, but it seemed like it was really cool place for me to be.

So I signed up.

I confirmed that I want to go to Harvard.

That's a classic 2010 and a few months before then.

Remember during my Harvard interview my interview asked me what I want to go to Harvard and I told them I didn't have really anything prepares.

I just told him straight up that my family immigrated from Taiwan to America for to get me a better education.

And I figured that, you know, the definition of a good education is probably at Harvard.

So I figured if I could go to Harvard, then that would be my way to say thank you to my parents and show them that they made the right decision.

So the following year, the fine semester I went to Harvard and I didn't have high expectations for myself because I knew that I was in Harford and I wasn't a genius like my my my classmates.

But even with the lower expectation, I was struggling.

The first mess at Harvard.

I had a C plus my first C plus every in my life.

And imagine having all the bright minds from around the world All the number ones the valedictorian, the perfect s A.

T s, the student athletes, all the all the entrepreneurs Everyone together in one place.

We can't all be number one After the first semester for the next four years, I was always invited into our residents office for jasmine tea because that's what happens when we're struggling in class.

And we're invited into the office to talk about what's going on.

And every time you go in and tell them, you know, classes are hard and I was doing my best for me.

It was okay.

High school for most restaurants was a breeze for high school.

You just work hard and get the great if you don't get the great work harder and you get the great and I think that's the case for I would say, almost all Harvard students.

But imagine someone who was always number one, who had never had a great lower than a not even a minus to go to Harvard.

And for the first time in their life, seeing that little minus sign Next A or Passing B's and C's.

When they try to work harder, they still get the decencies and that the pressure that will be will be with them because this is a new world that they have never seen before.

Scenes are always involved in national critical activities.

Harbor students are overachievers, We're perfectionists and we're leaders.

So back when were in high school were team captains where club founders, club presidents, company founders.

So when everyone's together in one place, you can't all be president anymore.

And clubs.

Someone has to be the president and someone has be the vice president.

Someone can't even be the vice president.

And so these cup elections can get really dirty and stressful.

Also, you've probably seen this diagram in college there three things there to balance your 2nd 10 mics.

There's a social life, and they're asleep.

In most cases, you're told that you can only choose two out of three, and it's impossible to balance all feet together for me, because college was tough.

There are many times when I even couldn't manage just one out of three, and then there's exploitation from friends family and everyone around you.

If you go to a place at Harvard or any Ivy League, so are any top universities around the world.

You're expected to do well, and you're expected to always be that perfect model for everyone else.

So imagine the time when someone like me or my classmates don't get that job that we want or don't get that internship that we want.

Don't get that create that we want.

The world gets different and we've become really, really stressed.

And it's even more stressful when we realize that all of our friends around us are seemingly doing well.

They got the job that they want.

My friend get into Microsoft.

This other friend gets into Google.

There's other friends got Facebook, Apple, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs.

And if I'm the one who hasn't got the job yet, it's really stressful, because when we're talking to friends, we talk about what's going on.

Where you guys going for the next summer, where guys doing after senior year?

Everyone else has a really Cohen sir, that we can congratulate them, but I don't have an answer again.

I love my parents.

My parents loved me, and whenever I have phone calls in my parents is pretty much every day in my junior and senior year.

They would ask me how it's doing.

They asked me how its job application, whether I got the interviews that I want on Microsoft, Google or Facebook, and over the phone.

I have to repeatedly tell them that I don't have the job yet.

Tell them that I'm still waiting.

This other place rejected me.

I'm tryingto tomb or this other place.

Got the first interview, but they never got back to the second round.

And so on all these phone calls, the care that they're showing me are becoming a burden for me.

Um, and I know that my parents be okay with wherever I end up.

I don't have to go to the top names.

Um, but part of me wants to be successful in front of them.

Part of me don't want them to worry about me.

And I want to be able to become successful so that they could be really proud of me.

You guys probably know who this guy is.

This is Judy the Rabbit from Utopia.

And in the beginning of the movie on if you guys remember.

But in the beginning, the movie, when Judy was having a horrible day in the police department, her pants called her and asked her, How is she doing?

She faked a smile and said Everything was going well and she feeling everyone's really nice.

In fact, that didn't happen at all.

But she was only putting on a face of fake side of her just so that her parents would not be worried about her.

And I would say that that's the most.

That's very common at places like Harvard.

Um, it's a very stressful place.

And because we're so used to being successful in high school, it's hard for us to deal with failures.

It is believed that more than half of harvest students encounter certain symptoms of depression during the four years at Harvard, and what makes them out of worse is that we're afraid to show this feeling because it's a sign, a weakness that we're not used to.

It's embarrassing also, to admit to friends that were struggling when you say hi to our friends, Um, say What's up?

The answer would be nothing.

The answer would be busy or the answer might be on tired, but it was never, ever I'm struggling.

I feel stressful and I need help In my sophomore year, it was a week and 1/2 after Thanksgiving one morning, 7 a.m. Our resident Ng came and knocked on doors.

I went to sleep at 4 a.m. the night before because of problem sets.

So of course I'm not going to be the person.

Get up and open the door away from my roommates.

Open the doors.

So my roommate open the doors.

Hey, came back to me.

Hey, Alex.

The resident deans and the proctors are outside.

You should probably wake up.

So I went.

I went over open door, let them in, feeling really grumpy.

And they said, Don't come in to tell us something I said, All right.

But my roommate, Jonathan around the guy wearing Red John is not around.

So you guys tell me and we can chat, But we'll have to relay the message to John later.

And then the proctors tell us.

Yeah, that's what that's actually the reason why we're here.

So he sat down and the practice hold us that John committed suicide the night before in his lab, and it was way didn't know how to feel because we never encountered death in our lives.

And John look perfectly happy.

John broke up with his girlfriend Ah, high school girlfriend a few a few weeks ago, and we knew he was sad at that moment, except soon after that moment.

He looked very happy here, starting to meet other friends.

The weekend before, we went to M i t for a party, and he seemed like he got over the break up and so little did we know that that happened.

And we even until today, we still don't know what happened, because we're all very good.

I hide your feelings even for me.

I think during my time at Harvard, since freshman year, there many times I run.

So I wanted to run away.

I being 1 April fools.

I lied.

I put on my Facebook that falling.

Yeah, I'm going to transfer to you partly as a joke, but on the other side, that was half truth because I was afraid that I can't survive at Harvard anymore.

And I need a way to escape in my junior and senior year.

I thought about what would happen if I don't get a job?

Well, that would be an embarrassment to my parents.

Would I be embarrassment to Harvard?

And then I thought about what?

The purpose of being around them if I and an embarrassment.

Maybe I should just run away and disappear forever.

Harvard was really four tough years for me.

I got a lot of Harvard.

The academics there were awesome.

The friends I met there.

Awesome.

And I think what I got the most out of Harvard was.

But I called the everything mentality, which is perseverance, confidence in passion and ability to deal with stress.

While I was at Harvard the four years I regret it after the four years now, looking back, I was really glad I had the experience there.

So in the end, I want to share three lessons I learned from my life.

And maybe you guys can resonate with this for seniors or soon to be seniors.

If you guys get into your dream schools, congratulations.

But be careful.

It's called train school, because it's not within your ability.

It's a school that's above your ability.

That's what you call a gene school.

So if you go there, expect other people to be smarter and brighter and better than you are.

I know that the stress might be there, and it will be uphill battle if you go there.

If you don't end up in your change school, it's okay because what matters more is not the school title.

What matters more is who you are.

I know it sounds really jaded, but it's true you don't have to put on a face side of you if you're level is there, then go to that school into well in that school.

If your goal is to go to a rascal, if your goal is if I make a job that having a good GP in that school in a school that fits you might be better than trying to get into Eugene School and struggle there.

And lastly, if you overachieve, you will feel stress at some point.

But know that it's okay.

No, that other people may not speak up, but know that other people are equally stress as you are, and it's okay for you to speak up and say that it's say that you're struggling if you're not doing well in school It's also okay.

It's not okay for in China, because if you're in Asia, you have to do what school do well in Cal Cal.

Get into the best universities and get a job.

That's the only witches to success in nature.

But if you're in America, that's not that's not the right way to do it.

You could go to the best school and be successful, or you could go to a decent school and half the right mentality and become very success in the future.

So I'll leave you with this, your success and your pride to your family.

Um, does not end with your college admission letter, and it's not defined by it.

Also, it's defined by who you are.

It's defined by your mentality, and that's what's gonna be with you forever.