Kai-fu Lee: Career Planning and Time Management for Undergraduate International Students

Kai-fu Lee: Career Planning and Time Management for Undergraduate International Students

Hello, I am a senior student studying undergraduate in the United States. The concepts of freedom, independence, and innovation in American culture and education have gradually taught me to learn and stand on my own, but in the process I have encountered a lot of confusion and incomprehension. These difficulties are closely related to the challenges of new culture, so I hope I have studied abroad or have experienced some of the problems that I am now confused. I know that it is not realistic to express all the details of the details, so I have summarized the following major aspects:

Career planning: Studying abroad has turned me into a cultural mezzanine product. Therefore, I don’t meet the majority of recommendations for domestic college students in career planning. At the same time, I can’t completely follow the career path of American undergraduates. Is it necessary for me to read this? ? I don't like to read blogs, but usually doctoral degrees are prepared for professors and scientific research. How do I plan to associate with reading and future employment? If I go back to China, where should I start looking for my ideal job? Therefore, I would like to ask the teachers, how to do career planning after 80 years of undergraduate study abroad?

Time management: Like many American undergraduates, I chose to live in an apartment around the school, but I found that living in an apartment requires a strong self-control ability. I insist that the efficiency of learning in school during the day is relatively high, but the efficiency of learning after each return is very low, often can not complete the tasks assigned to myself on time, often wasted on the Internet. My American roommate is rather boring, and it will give me some bad influence. I would love to hear your suggestions about managing time.

Kai-fu Lee: A related career planning

Many people simply divide their lives into two stages. They study and plan while studying, and then do career planning after graduation. Learning plans are often simply summarized as "postgraduate research," "achievement," and "going abroad." However, this practice confuses the true purpose of reading - learning the skills, perfecting yourself, and finding the career and work that suits you best.

In today's highly competitive environment, traditional practices such as “staged planning” have rigidly shaped students' thinking about learning and work, preventing them from actively understanding and understanding the trends of the times and finding their true goals. A student who knows little about himself and who knows little about society needs to be confused, worried and even disappointed when he comes to graduation.

My advice to college students is: "Professional planning, starting with admission." In other words, students should start their career planning as soon as possible from the first day of entering the university. With rational thinking and active attitude, based on deep cognition and extensive experience, they will lay a good foundation for graduation. basis.

Usually, I divide my career planning into the following three steps:

1. Know yourself: that is, find your own ideals, interests, talents and actively adjust yourself. In the four years of college, we should gradually find out what our ideals are, what our interests are, and where we can do better. If you don't know where your interests are, you should keep a curious attitude, try more, challenge yourself, and make yourself progress every day. Many students are not interested in the profession. In fact, everyone can also cultivate interest while looking for interest. There are many different development directions in a profession, and you may be interested in one of them. Moreover, the majors you have studied may have opportunities for cross-domain synthesis with the majors you are most interested in, which is also a good way to cultivate interest.

2. Understand job opportunities: Here, we must know that professional direction is not the same as future work. Former US Secretary of Education Richard Riley once said that the ten most urgently needed jobs in 2019 did not exist in 2004. This shows that students must constantly update their understanding of the industry, and constantly research industry development trends, work prospects, international competition and so on. I suggest that students spend more time, get to know some good companies, and take a look at the real work situation in these companies. Be sure to actively collect relevant information, consult experienced people, seek opportunities to visit companies and internships, and listen to corporate presentations or presentations. To truly understand the job opportunities outside, you must not make a head to decide your own employment direction, nor can you listen to it. Instead, you should consult more and practice more to make your planning more realistic. Finally, be sure to be pragmatic when choosing a job. Your first job is best started at the grassroots level. You must also be clear that based on your own abilities, your own career opportunities are likely to be won.

3. Develop a career plan: When you know your interests and related job opportunities, try more, try to match your interests, talents and ideals to your own potential job opportunities, and exclude those who are not related or unable to play. The choice of potential. After that, you should calm down and plan a career plan. Career planning should be based on your ideals and interests, and be a pragmatic combination of work direction. On the one hand, plan to maximize your chances of entering the ideal company during school; on the other hand, don't expect a career plan, but step by step, climbing step by step like rock climbing. Students should have a lofty ideal, but I suggest that when doing practical career planning, it is best to use the "two-step plan" for those goals that are not easy to achieve in one step: first develop one for yourself three to five years later. Clear goals, consult and determine how to achieve this goal, and then achieve the goal in two steps.

Time management

The two greatest treasures of a person's life are: your talent and your time. More and more talents, but less and less time, we can say that we spend our time in exchange for talent. If one day passes, our time is less, and talent is not increasing, that is, we have spent our time. Therefore, we must save time and use time efficiently. How to use time efficiently? I have the following suggestions:

1. Know how your time is spent. Pick a week, record every 30 minutes of doing things every day, then do a classification and statistics to see what you spend too much time. To make progress in everything, we must first understand the status quo.

2. Learn to use time debris and "dead time." If you do the above time statistics, you must find that there is a lot of time lost every day, such as waiting for a car, queuing, walking, hitchhiking, etc., can be used to recite words, make phone calls, review homework, etc. Everyone likes to listen to music with an MP3 player, but why not put some of the learning content into your MP3 player? In foreign countries, podcasts are now popular. Some information that can be understood by listening to them is recorded in an MP3 player and listened when driving home. I was on a business trip with my colleagues for a while ago. They were all amazed at why I was with them all day, but my emails can be answered in time. Later, they found that when they were chatting on the plane with the car, reading magazines and being in a daze, I sent the email back. The point is, whether you are busy or not, you have to prepare those who can make use of time debris, and plan to take it out when you are free.

3. Every day in the morning, prioritize what you should do in one day, do it in this order, and ask yourself to finish the three most important things this day. I feel that I can't finish things every day in my work and life. The only thing I can do is to prioritize. Some young people will say that they "have no time to learn". In fact, another way of saying is that "learning is not ranked in priority order." There used to be a teacher who taught students time management. He brought two large glass jars and a pile of stones of different sizes during class. He did an experiment, pouring small stones and sand into one of the glass jars, and finally the big stone could not fit. In another glass jar, the stone is first enlarged, and other small stones and sand can be slowly infiltrated. He used this as a metaphor: "Time management is to find your own priorities. If you reverse the order, a bunch of trivial things will fill up the time, and important things will not be empty."

4. Apply the 80%-20% principle. If people use the most efficient time, as long as 20% of the investment can produce 80% efficiency. Relatively speaking, 80% of the time input can only produce 20% efficiency if the least efficient time is used. When the mind is most clear in the day, it should be placed on the work that requires the most attention. The time spent with friends and family is relatively clear. Therefore, we need to grasp 20% of the most efficient time of the day, specifically for the most difficult subjects and the most need to think about learning. Many students like to stay up late, but they will get hurt by sleeping at night, so try to get up early and get up early.

5. Time management and goal management are inseparable. The completion of each small goal will let you know clearly how close you are to the big goal. Your daily action commitment is your stress and motivation, and the commitment to action must be combined with your long-term goals. Therefore, if you want to work and live with a plan, you need to manage your time.

6. If you can't concentrate on your bedroom, go to the library and read, there is no roommate affecting you, nor a computer or network that tempts you.