耶魯大學的面試官是到現在我見到的面試官中年齡最大的，Yale University Class of 1982，先後供職於Citi Bank、Professional Group for Ivy League等，在Yale是Double Major-Arch/Soci+Minor-Fine Art。
面試是在他家進行的，總共進行了大概兩個小時。
相對於之前的Harvard和Dartmouth的面試，Yale的面試正式的多，面試官拿了一個類似Check List的東西，上面印有Yale校徽，我猜測可能是Yale給面試官的一個要求。另一方面，不同於H、D，Yale的面試官在面試之前已經拿到了我的Common App、Supplement等一切我遞交給Yale的材料，但是估計是出於檢驗真偽的考慮，在一些問題上他還是涉及了我已經提供的信息。
Q: So when did you transfer to St. Johns?
A: Since 2009. Before that, I finish most of my education in China, at the end of junior year, I transfered to St. Johns, since they didn't accept senior transfer student, I returned back to junior.
Q: So you repeated your junior year.
A: Yeah, actually most of my classmates in China have already been in colleges.
Q: Ok, is any of them in the United States now?
A: There are a lot of them here in the U.S., and one of my friends, also my workmate in student government, is now in Yale.
Q: So you guys talked about Yale?
A: Of course. But you know, I was quite young when I first heard about Yale. The first government-sponsored students even from Qing Dynasty, went to Yale hundred of years ago, and most of them became mainstay of China at that time, especially in industries and politics.
Q: So you have heard about these guys?
A: Yeah, they are quite famous, though I guess you may not know them.. Since I'm a super fun of history, I searched a lot on such part of history, as it's the first time that China open the door for education.
Q: Oh yeah I saw your profile, it mentions that you did a lot of historical research, how's that?
A: It takes me a lot of time (laugh)... Actually I enjoy it. Especially the first time I did such a research independently. It was 2007 when my previous school in China was doing a reconstruction of the campus to celebrate the 100th anniversary, and from all the stuffs there I was thinking if there could be something historical. And in fact there was. I finally found a stele with left corner decorated by some beautiful patterns. So I started to do research on that. I sorted out all the characters on it, it's hard because the stele has been seversely damaged during the Cultural Revolution in 1960s. Then I spent two months referring historical materials to find any clue possible for the stele. In fact it was from Qing Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong, to mark a training ground for royal army.
Q: That's fascinating. It worth for you to spend time on that.
A: I'm sure it did. And I also did some research on British Royal History since 1066.
Q: Oh, from the Norman Conquest?
A: Yes, I went through the House of Norman, and then House of Plantagenets, House of York, Lancaster... and finally Hannover, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Windsor. Since it's a long history, I spent almost 2 years on that. During that, I translated some documents in full text that had never been translated into Chinese.
Q: Em, interesting. Well, there's a question that came out minutes before that I want to ask... So you are applying for international studies, why? I mean, do you have some specific reason to choose such a major? I'm just wondering.
A: Well, there's a variety of reason... I consider 21st century as an era of globalization, actually a lot of professors agree with me (laugh). So it's really important to have a broad view on intrnational stage. I'm from China, the biggest developing country, and now I'm studying in U.S., the only left super power, I experienced a lot on the importance of the bilateral relationships between these two countries. Especially last week, our President Hu just finished his formal visit to U.S., you can see from mass media how important it is. Actually, not only Sino-US relations, but all the countries are facing the globalizations and seeking for better positions on the position. So there're actually a lot of things for me, for our generations to do. Full of opportunities.
Q: So you may not end up in U.S.?
A: Of course, I considered U.S. has been almost completely developed, but for China, and all the other African countries, Asian countries, there are huge blanks in politics, economy, education, huge market with great chances. Maybe some day you'll find me in Nigeria.
Q: Oh yeah, China is pouring investment to Africa... to those who were our friends before...
A: It's government strategy.. There are competitions, no one wants the opportunity to skip away..
Q: Yeah of course, you are right.. I like your idea.. U.S. is really sort of fully developed.. you don't know what you can do more.. you know, people here are getting lazy.. we have calculator, PC, all kind of things.. I cannot imagine that my daughter, she was in a public school and now in Boston University (我艹這家落差夠大的，爹是Yale的，女兒BU的，差出五六十名去), they use cell phones during class!
A: You know what... this actually happens more frequently in China...(我實在沒好意思告訴他我就這麼幹)
Q: Oh they do..?! That's terrible..
A: Well, you cannot control that, since people have the rights of bearing such devices..
Q: Yeah. But I mean people do not work hard as before.
A: Yeah, I think these problems get more serious in Europe, the population there was aging so rapidly and the birth rate is negative even decreasing much faster every year..
Q: The problem of urbanization.
A: And China, too. We are suffering the pollution, contamination...
Q: I saw a picture of cars in China, it's a lot, more than I have ever seen in one picture.
A: There's rush hour 24/7 in China now (laugh).
Q: Hopefully the government is taking actions on that?
A: They are.. but not really effectively. People are getting richer just in the past decade, thousands of millionaire, they can afford the high cost, so even the government prohibit them from buying new cars, that's what the government of Beijing is doing, lottery for car registration number, those rich guys still want to pay the fee for new cars.
Q: I see... So what about your parents? Are they still in China?
A: Yes.
Q: Do they drive to work?
A: Actually they do, our home is not close to their working place.
Q: Ok. You mentioned that the government is taking actions, from what I see, Chinese government did better than U.S. government in doing so..
A: I understand your point.. the gap between Democrats and Republicans is huge. I think there's something wrong with the party system of the United States, not like the sectionalism in 1820s and 1840s, but there's something wrong. The two parties can blame each other. See, that's the only advantage of Chinese party system, there's only one party, so for any problems they need to find internal reasons, otherwise they have no one else to blame.
Q: That's right, you know, when I was 17 years old in Boston, one of the candidates from Republican party, his slogan was "a party to say 'no'!" How ridiculous it was!
A: Well, but a lot of people criticize that the Chinese party system is actually a dictatorship.. that's the problem we need to face, we have to make some progress on democracy.
Q: Yeah.
根據相關法律法規和政策，以下內容未予顯示。(這部分時長約1個小時……)
Q: BTW, I just thought an interesting question. What do you think about the food in America?
A: You know, the first thing comes to my mind is, that there's no really Amercian food... laugh... pasta is from Italy, hamburger is from Germany, actually nothing is really native..
Q: Yeah, but you can say corn is from America.
A: En, it is, it's introduced to Europe in mid 16th century?
Q: Approximately. But what you sai is true, there's no really American style.. My wife, her grandfather is from Hungary and her grandmother has the origin of Italy, my great great grandfather came from Netherland and my great grandmother has the origin from Ireland (What the hell... how can I remember all... how can he remember all...). Those Europeans killed a lot of natives, or they just absorbed them.. you know, in Boston, you cannot tell it a man is from a local tribe unless you get his name.. they just look the same to our whites. But in Minnesota it's different.
A: You mean the Indian reservations?
Q: Right, they have their own governments, independent laws.. they keep something tribal. But in the other areas, it's just ruined by early immigrants.
A: But that's why U.S. is so successful... accepting people all over the world.
Q: That's one reason.
學院街 (共556篇)