My name is Eric Lee, a 5th year student at UCLA. I grew up in Taiwan until I was thirteen and came to the US to study in high school and college. The combination of eastern and western cultural backgrounds helped me to see the advantages in each culture and influence my ideology. I appreciate the hardworking mentality in the eastern culture, yet I enjoy the outspoken and confident western culture. These two backgrounds allow me to adapt the goods from each and help me to grow as an individual.I am currently an electrical engineering major but want to direct into the finance route afterwards. The main reason why I chose the engineering major was because I thought the challenging aspects of the major will help me to grow as a person and learn soft skills from overcoming the difficulties. However, after working for an engineering company, I realized the lackluster life is not what I wanted. I need a career that constantly changes and help me to learn about different industries, instead of one that does not improve my expertise.Besides just work, I participate in several student groups on campus such as Delta Tau Delta fraternity (DTD). I am responsible for organizing philanthropy event in my fraternity that is sponsored by corporations and students in order to raise money for students who cannot support themselves to pursue higher education. I enjoy working in a team trying to better the society, and it was the primary reason why I led the philanthropy events in my fraternity.Also, I am actively involved in American Chinese Associate (ACA) and Undergraduate Business Society (UBS). During my time in ACA, I was responsible for organizing events for the club and raising Chinese culture awareness on campus. ACA was a great experience and taught me a lot about leadership skills when stressful deadlines come up constantly.Aside from school, I enjoy playing basketball, watching movies, and spending time with friends. Although I work hard, I manage to balance out the work life with some social aspects. I always think that life is too short to be constantly working and I should enjoy every moment as I can.As I am going through recruiting now, I realized that perhaps I am struggling with my inner self. Being ultra-competitive as I am as a person, I take the result of everything I do very seriously. Even as a child, I never needed to face any frustrations because I always do well in school, sports, or even in social circles. Unfortunately, this recruiting season teaches me the reality of what I can do and cannot do. Seeing other people whom I thought are less qualified than me obtaining offers disappoint me a lot. Although I hate elitism, I sometimes cannot see why others were able to do better. I just received a call about ten minutes ago from one of the recruiters and said that unfortunately I won’t be going extended an offer and it really revealed a lot about myself. Is it anger? Is it jealousy? I am not sure what my inner emotions are. However, I am sure it is the discontent that drives me to the point of insanity. I don’t know where the future is going to take me but the disappointments really struck me. I cannot do much at this point except to work harder to get to my goal. Hopefully I will receive a call with congratulations instead of disappoints in the near future.
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