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In Remembrance of the July CFL U.S. Project…

Flashing through my mind are the sweet memories of the July 2008 China Future Leadership U.S. project (中国未来领导精英项目), as well as those lovely faces of all the friends I made during that unforgettable trip. Good time was short as always: 11 days and nights quickly passed me by; yet I found that there was so much that I experienced, learned and gained by virtue of the CFL U.S. trip.

       Although it would be almost impossible to condense all my experiences into a single representative day, let me just try to paint my daily experience with broader strokes: every day I experienced something unique; every day I met new people; every day I learned something useful; every day I gained something valuable.

       Every day I experienced something uniquely fantastic: the easy-going attitude of average Americans in contrast to the solemnity of elite academic institutions; the laid-back lifestyles in “small-town America” compared with the hustle-and-bustle in metropolis like downtown Manhattan. Every moment of this trip was full of incredible surprises that opened up both my mind and eyes.

Every day I met some new people. At the beginning of the trip, I took on the duty as someone responsible for coordinating everything on one of the two buses. It was somewhat a challenge to manage and organize half of the total delegates - a group of 40 people, yet I saw it as a great opportunity to hone my leadership skills plus my ability to communicate across and lead a large team. Thanks to this role, I was able to forge close relationships with many of the CFL members, most of whom have become good friends of mine. Every day of this trip was typified by unique interactions with someone who brought me surprises and widened my perspectives.

       Every day I learned something new and useful: whether be a lecture given by officials from the Federal Reserve, a discussion with professor in J.F.K. School of Government at Harvard, or a seminar on Marketing in Columbia Business School, to name but a few. On top of all that, I also found great lessons could be learned and knowledge to be gained just from the daily interactions with peer CFL members, who were all highly-selected individuals with diverse backgrounds and impressive achievements.

       For all the reasons mentioned above, among many other things, I remain appreciative of the July 2008 China Future Leadership U.S. project. I am grateful of the fact that I was selected as a delegate for this trip, which brought me closer than ever before to the elite universities in the world. It was CFL that made it possible for me to experience first-hand the world-class faculty and state-of-the-art facilities at those top graduate schools. Thanks to CFL, I was fortunate enough to meet a group of highly-accomplished, yet like-minded peers with diverse backgrounds to share but common goals to pursue. Every single day of this trip has compelled me to adjust to a new cultural environment; not only has it challenged me to consistently readjust my mindset, but it also constantly staggered me with how much I have yet to learn. Each and every day of this amazing trip was unforgettable; it has been fun, educational, humbling, and enthralling. But it has never been boring.

July 2008 CFL U.S. delegate, University of Toronto 魏然

August 14, 2008