Unfair Turn Changes Life For the Better

Recent Stanford MBA Grad Jason Jianyu Tu was born in 1989 in a small village 125 miles south of Xian--in what he termed a "sixth-tier city," meaning, "There's a very slim chance you can be successful." (See post one.) His parents, well aware of this, searched for ways out of this small village, and eventually found a path to Xian. (See post two.) The big city of Xian--although only a hop, skip and a jump away--was like a different planet, with buses and fast food and a really tough school. (See post three.) Jason gave up trying to do well in school, instead focusing his energy where his passions lay: guitar and blockbuster movies. (See post four.) While Jason's high school headmaster did not have high hopes that Jason would get a college degree, Jason jumped through hoop after hoop to get accepted to the University of Washington. His only problem? Funding. (See post five.) Thanks, however, to a mass e-mail marketing campaign, Jason found himself accepted to the University of Evansville in Indiana. (See post six.) He was thrilled...until he landed in what felt was the middle of nowhere. (See post seven.) As Jason was one of two Chinese people at the school, he was immediately the expert on anything and everything that had to do with China. (See post eight.) Not only that, but he was soon paired up with an American host family, something he looks back on as a very important part of his life. (See post nine.) Despite the warm welcome in Evansville, he decided he needed to move to a bigger place. (See post ten.) Upon graduating with a degree in Economics from Purdue University, however, Jason still had trouble finding a job. He was initially relieved to get a Research Fellowship at Toulouse School of Economics in France. (See post eleven.) The inefficiency of France drove him nuts. (See post twelve.)

 “I always joke that French culture is all about making mistakes and correcting mistakes. One of these mistakes changed my life." 

After the first year, the Ph.D. students are required to take what’s called a Qualification Exam which ensures that you are prepared for your Ph.D. research.  Jason took the test and then went to join his girlfriend (now wife) for a holiday in Paris. 

While vacationing he received an e-mail from the school secretary saying that he had been dropped from the program.

“She said that one of the subjects I had to pass—econometrics, which is statistics, which was my major—I got 6/20. So, I immediately flew back and they allowed me to check my exam paper. I went into the professor’s office and checked my exam paper. Of the three pages of the exam paper, he had only graded one page. He forgot to grade the other two. 

“He said, ‘No worries. I’m going to change that for you.’ Typical French answer.

“One week after, he still hasn’t corrected it.  Two weeks, still I haven’t heard back. So I e-mailed, ‘Are you going to change the grade for me?’ He didn’t answer.

“So I went to his office. He said, ‘I said I’d change it for you. I’ll change it for you. I’m just busy.’

“One month later, he still hasn’t changed it.

“So I copied everyone in the department and sent out an e-mail saying that he made a mistake and after a month he still hasn’t changed it. Looking back that was really stupid.

“Academia is a different institution. Authority is based on whether you publish papers and are tenured. This tenured professor wrote back to everyone, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to change Jason’s grade. It’s that he only submitted one page.’

“Because he was super-prestigious in academia, you can’t fight with him or anything. The more I talk about it with others, the more I make myself sound like a whining kid.
“That night I was lying in bed trying to figure out what to do and I heard tap water running. I followed the sound and saw a bunch of drunk French men peeing against my apartment. When French people get drunk they do all kinds of stupid things. All of a sudden everything was clear in my mind, and I was glad that this happened to me. If this hadn’t happened to me I would have gotten stuck in a place that was smaller than me.”

(To be continued. Next: Stanford--The Third Time's the Charm.)