In recent years, as the political atmosphere between China and the United States becomes more and more tense, international students have been put in an uneasy position. For Xinyun Liu (‘20), who came to the US as a Chinese international high school senior, she felt uncertain about her post high school life. In the end, to prioritize her studies and adapt to her new environment,  Liu decided  to first attend community college, then transfer in her junior year.

“I didn’t have many opportunities to prepare a complete application like a normal high school student, and my activity experience didn’t support me to my dream school as well…I chose to go to the community college to complete the first two years of study and give myself some time to adapt to the entire American campus and American life. Now it seems that this decision is correct,” said Liu.

Mass opinion often portrays community colleges as where  misbehaving students end up due to poor academic performance in high school. However,  barriers  such as financial disadvantage and class sizes are less taken into account when comparing community colleges to normal four-year universities.

“The transfer system is complete, the tuition fee is cheap, and the classroom size of lower-grade courses is much smaller than that of public schools which is always about 25 to 40 people. The advantage is that there are more opportunities to talk to professors. You can also meet people of different ages,” said Liu.

In California, the renowned UC transfer system is extremely competitive. For transfers to be accepted, the system requires a high GPA, which assures the university that the student has a solid foundation in the major they wish to join. Besides standardized scores, highly weighted extracurricular activities are also an imperative factor that UC considers when evaluating a student’s potential. 

For Xinyun, preparing her transfer application was a long-term process. She was in constant toil because she knew that everyone else was also working hard like her, thus she needed to ensure that grades are always above a standardized range.

“I took all lower division required courses in the first three semesters and tried to get a good GPA to become more academically competitive. Besides, I attended some competitions, joined some club activities and found volunteering. Those activities gave me much experience to be told in my application essays,” said Xinyun.

As a STEM student, Xinyun first considered majoring in accounting. However, after experiencing several activities about statistics, she unearths the application of data collection to the real world, and is attracted by the principles behind this math realm. 

“It is very common to change your major in college. After all, not everyone can find their own dreams from the beginning, can they? Later when I study in UCB, I plan to enter the laboratory to complete some scientific research activities, and I also want to know more about the combination of this subject with other professional knowledge. There is still a lot to learn,” said Liu.

In the past application season, Xinyun was accepted by UCLA, UC Berkeley, UCSB, UC Irvine and UC Davis. Now, Statistics will be the field Liu is going to dig more in her next two years of study at UC Berkeley.

“She has great potential in her academic learning. She is very hard working and always seeks help when encountering problems in her learning process. Able to seek help is a very important capacity because we can not solve all the problems by ourselves. Taking three math classes during the summer and surviving in all of them shows that she is very well fit for this subject and is capable of studying in a high pressure environment,” said Yuki Yang (‘21), Liu’s friend.

All roads lead to Rome. In the same vein, there are always a variety of ways which can contribute to your final achievements. For Xinyun, her college life and decision are about keeping discovering her potential and seizing every possible opportunity.

“Talk with your counselor before making any decision about academics. Communicating with your professors during office hour.There are a lot of opportunities at school, don’t miss them. Enjoy your college life,” advised Liu.