What Chinese students in the US think about their institutes and themselves: Yingyi Ma’s attempt to explain is of best use for the educators

‘Ambitious and Anxious’ will come as little surprise to those who have studied overseas, and is best for those who still see Chinese students as a puzzle

Ma makes some prescriptions such as recommending that more efforts be made to integrate Chinese students into American university social life

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Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education examines the whys and hows of Chinese students who study overseas in places like Columbia University in New York in ways useful to overseas educators. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 9:00pm, 24 Feb 2020Updated: 9:04pm, 24 Feb 2020

Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese College Students Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education, by Yingyi Ma, Columbia University Press, 4/5 stars

From being targets of American soft power, a significant service export and a major financial prop for institutions of higher learning, Chinese students in the US have recently come to be seen – in certain quarters, anyway – as vehicles for Chinese government influence.

Yingyi Ma’s new study, based on data collected mostly in what were the halcyon days of 2013-16, does not deal with these issues. But it attempts to explain what Chinese students in the US think about themselves and their journey, and might inform the rising debate.

The title gives away the conclusion: they are ambitious and anxious, something one might have guessed without survey data. It takes considerable get up and go to take oneself off for several years to a foreign country, culture, language and educational system. If American undergraduates suffer from anxiety, it is hardly surprising that Chinese students do as well.

Little in Ambitious and Anxious will come as a surprise to those of us in East Asia who have either been through this, have friends who have, or who have read the great many stories, op-eds and profiles that appear in the regional press. Ma’s study will be of most use to educators – professors and administrators – who perhaps find their Chinese charges a bit of a puzzle.

It is worth remembering how new this influx of foreign students is. Back in the old days, before the 1990s, say, at a time when many, if not most, of today’s educators were going through their own educational rite of passage, international students were anomalies – at least in the US.

What Chinese students in the US think about their institutes and themselves: Yingyi Ma’s attempt to explain is of best use for the educators

‘Ambitious and Anxious’ will come as little surprise to those who have studied overseas, and is best for those who still see Chinese students as a puzzle Ma makes some prescriptions such as recommending that more efforts be made to integrate Chinese students into American university social life