"Not Ready for The Real World”: Yale Students on the Pressure to Achieve and American vs Chinese Approaches to Success

In this week’s episode of Pod and Man at Yale, Tori Cook ’27 and Vanessa Li ’25 take on Yale’s busyness culture and whether China’s or America’s educational culture is the best path for societal success.

• Vanessa Li: “It’s good to have this kind of pressure to push you to achieve better. But make sure that you are directing the pressure in the direction that you want.”
• Tori Cook: “The idea that you’re then going to force someone into sticking with (the career they chose at 18), I think the consequences really can be devastating.” 
• Li: “Under the Hong Kong education system, I wasn’t doing very well. But I excelled in the U.S. education system because I was given a lot more opportunity to do things outside of academics.” 
• Cook: “This is something that sometimes I’ll see in clubs where it gets really ugly with people stepping over people or going behind people’s backs…and to know that this continues after college is concerning.”
• Li: “If you’re upset over getting rejected from this volunteering club then you are not ready for the real world.”

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