Opportunism
When I think of the word "opportunism", taking advantage of circumstances, I think about a story that my father told me a couple of years ago. Over the years, my father has told me many stories about his life, but this one has always stuck with me which is about the difficult choices he had to make before University and all the way until when he was getting his first job after graduating from his PhD program.
Here is some background information about my father before I tell the story. My father grew up with in a very poor family in Hong Kong and he was the second oldest of five siblings, three boys and two girls. My father was also the first person ever within the extended family tree to go to University (getting into college in Hong Kong back then was very difficult and the available spots were very limited).
So before my father got accepted into University in Hong Kong, he had a job available to him which was a job in a factory. The money he would earn from that job would go to help the family because he still had two younger siblings at the time (the fifth sibling wasn't born yet). However instead of being opportunistic and taking the job opportunity immediately, he wanted to try to get into University first so he studied for a whole year in order to take the placement exam. My father knew his chances of getting into University were very slim especially because during that time there were only eight Universities in Hong Kong and so many students were trying to get in with only a limited amount of spots.
At the time, my grandmother strongly disagreed with my father, telling him work and earn money to support the family. However my grandfather supported my father and told him to try to chase his dreams, but my grandfather would only give him a year and if he couldn't do it within that time frame, my father would have to have to get a job. My father told me, "during that whole year, I felt guilty. My mother was telling me to find a job and it was understandable because the family was constantly struggling with money. However I just couldn't bring myself to do it, I dreamed of doing something else other than just working in a factory for the rest of my life, so I decided to be selfish and studied like my life depended on it." And after taking the placement exam and applying to all the eight universities, my father got into only one of them but he said it was one of the happiest moments of his life.
So my father entered University as a Math major and initially his plans were to graduate University and then find a good job in order to help support the family. However as he was in college, he discovered his life long dream which was that he wanted to become a professor and teach at a University. But in order to become a professor, he needed to get a PhD which meant that he would need to go through a couple more years of schooling instead of immediately getting a job. So once again my father decided to be "selfish" and applied to schools in the U.S and was accepted into a Statistics PhD program.
My father traveled to the U.S for school and barely knew any English. Also that same year was the year that his youngest brother was born. During his time in the PhD program, my father still had the dream of becoming a professor and after he graduated he was even offered to teach at some Universities. However there was a big problem, the salaries for these professor positions weren't large enough to help support the rest of his family.
My father said, "I knew at that time I could no longer be selfish." So he decided to give up his life long dream and accept a Statistics job offer he got from a well-known company which had a higher salary. With that job, my father was able to send more money back to his family that he would be able to if he just got a job during his last two opportunities and he was even able to pay for the college tuition of his three younger siblings.
Now over forty years later, my father retired from that company last year and is still going to finally be able to live his dream of being a professor. He has received offers to teach in Universities in the U.S and in Hong Kong, and is currently just figuring out which one he wants to teach at.
Throughout my father's life, he had many opportunities to act opportunistic but he decided to be selfish instead and try to achieve his dreams. And even when he was about to achieve that dream, he didn't act opportunistic because his family situation wouldn't allow it. But ultimately "good things come out to those who wait" and my father is still going to be able to achieve that same dream, just many year later.
All these various explanations of not acting opportunistically when given the chance are different, as the intent of why the person didn't act opportunistically are different.
Here is some background information about my father before I tell the story. My father grew up with in a very poor family in Hong Kong and he was the second oldest of five siblings, three boys and two girls. My father was also the first person ever within the extended family tree to go to University (getting into college in Hong Kong back then was very difficult and the available spots were very limited).
So before my father got accepted into University in Hong Kong, he had a job available to him which was a job in a factory. The money he would earn from that job would go to help the family because he still had two younger siblings at the time (the fifth sibling wasn't born yet). However instead of being opportunistic and taking the job opportunity immediately, he wanted to try to get into University first so he studied for a whole year in order to take the placement exam. My father knew his chances of getting into University were very slim especially because during that time there were only eight Universities in Hong Kong and so many students were trying to get in with only a limited amount of spots.
At the time, my grandmother strongly disagreed with my father, telling him work and earn money to support the family. However my grandfather supported my father and told him to try to chase his dreams, but my grandfather would only give him a year and if he couldn't do it within that time frame, my father would have to have to get a job. My father told me, "during that whole year, I felt guilty. My mother was telling me to find a job and it was understandable because the family was constantly struggling with money. However I just couldn't bring myself to do it, I dreamed of doing something else other than just working in a factory for the rest of my life, so I decided to be selfish and studied like my life depended on it." And after taking the placement exam and applying to all the eight universities, my father got into only one of them but he said it was one of the happiest moments of his life.
So my father entered University as a Math major and initially his plans were to graduate University and then find a good job in order to help support the family. However as he was in college, he discovered his life long dream which was that he wanted to become a professor and teach at a University. But in order to become a professor, he needed to get a PhD which meant that he would need to go through a couple more years of schooling instead of immediately getting a job. So once again my father decided to be "selfish" and applied to schools in the U.S and was accepted into a Statistics PhD program.
My father traveled to the U.S for school and barely knew any English. Also that same year was the year that his youngest brother was born. During his time in the PhD program, my father still had the dream of becoming a professor and after he graduated he was even offered to teach at some Universities. However there was a big problem, the salaries for these professor positions weren't large enough to help support the rest of his family.
My father said, "I knew at that time I could no longer be selfish." So he decided to give up his life long dream and accept a Statistics job offer he got from a well-known company which had a higher salary. With that job, my father was able to send more money back to his family that he would be able to if he just got a job during his last two opportunities and he was even able to pay for the college tuition of his three younger siblings.
Now over forty years later, my father retired from that company last year and is still going to finally be able to live his dream of being a professor. He has received offers to teach in Universities in the U.S and in Hong Kong, and is currently just figuring out which one he wants to teach at.
Throughout my father's life, he had many opportunities to act opportunistic but he decided to be selfish instead and try to achieve his dreams. And even when he was about to achieve that dream, he didn't act opportunistic because his family situation wouldn't allow it. But ultimately "good things come out to those who wait" and my father is still going to be able to achieve that same dream, just many year later.
All these various explanations of not acting opportunistically when given the chance are different, as the intent of why the person didn't act opportunistically are different.
The part of your story I didn't understand was this. Could one work and study for the placement exam into the university part time in addition to working? You made it sound like that was not possible. Many students nowadays take a gap year, either between high school and college or between college and a real job. Was a gap year possible for your dad back then? I got the point that it was extremely competitive to get into a university, but I'm unclear on what the entrance test was like and whether it warranted preparing for it full time.
ReplyDeleteI also didn't quite understand the income flows once your father got into college. Did your grandfather continue to support him then or was he on some stipend that the university paid? I'm guessing that the tuition was paid for by somebody else, but it would have been good to be explicit about that.
I'd also be interested in hearing about your father's younger siblings. How did they fare? Was there not enough income to go around to support them? Or was your father's example that a of a role model and they too eventually went to college.
I'm not sure if this makes sense to mention here, but the business cycle can matter in which are the right decisions to make in these circumstances. When the unemployment rate is high, some people go to college merely because they know they won't be able to find a job. Conversely, when the job market is tight, some people go to work immediately, because the opportunity cost of attending college has gotten higher. Forty years ago, if memory serves, there was the Asian Debt Crisis, that was s prelude to the burst of the dot.com bubble here. You might ask your father (not for this blog post, just out of curiosity) whether any of the macroeconomics of the time impacted his decision.
To answer your first question, it was possible to study for the placement exam as well as work part time. But at the time I believe that my father was thinking that separating his time into two didn't things would give him less of a chance to get into University so he didn't want to take any chances. I'm not sure what the entrance test was like, I could ask my father later but I remember him telling me that the only thing he got was a really good score in the Math exam which was difficult and that's the only reason the university took a chance on him.
ReplyDeleteI believe that when my father went to university in Hong Kong, that was paid by my grandparents. But when he went to the U.S for his PhD program, that was paid for by the college. My father also said that he would rarely ever eat out and mostly cooked his meals as well as was eating a lot of ramen noodles for his meals during his college years, so he couldn't have been getting that much money from the University or my grandparents.
As for my father's three younger siblings, the family was always struggling with money to support all the kids. But after my father got his job, he basically took all the expenses onto himself. My father also strongly encouraged his three younger siblings to go to college whether it be in Hong Kong or some other country and even paid for all of their University tuition and expenses himself. The 3rd and 4th siblings went to Universities outside of Hong Kong while the youngest sibling eventually went to a University in Hong Kong. Now they are all doing well in their careers.