At the time that I was about to finish my undergraduate study back in 2018, studying aboard did not come to my mind so far. Like many of my peers, I chose to accept the opportunities offered by many prestigious domestic universities to be excused from the graduate entrance exam.

Everything started in June, and some of my friends came to my graduation. During the talk, I was shocked that they mostly got offers from top universities from all over the world including UC Berkeley, Cambridge, Oxford, and so on. To be honest, before that, the stereotype that formed with the help of my family’s education told me having an opportunity to study in those programs was out of reach. After much deliberation, a decision was reached: I want to study aboard as well.

The first cloud that came over my head was the Language test. Specifically, TOEFL and GRE. At the time that I made such a decision, it was already September. There were 2 months away from the application. This meant I only had 2 months left to prepare the language.

Luckily, I survived from the hard time. Two things made me strong enough: First, Cornelia Street of Taylor Swift. The second, a poster from UCI.

On the Christmas Eve of 2019, I stepped on the airline from Chengdu to San Francisco to start my study at UC Berkeley. I told my mom the truth that I chose to drop my study in China and started a new era in the US after landing at SFO. At that time, I felt like I was a gambler who put everything earned on the table and had no-limit greed.

From March 2020, in Berkeley’s class, offers came one after another. The first program that offered me an opportunity was the master of statistics from Washington University in St. Louis. The moment I got my first offer, I finally felt that the stone had fallen to the ground. Next, I got master's offers from other universities: the University of Illinois, Champaign, Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of California, Irvine, etc. There were fewer doctoral programs compared with master’s: the University of California, riverside, and the University of Delaware.

Click here to watch Dayu's video about his decision to pursue doctoral studies at UD: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Xc7kKrgLyUEDoVRx9ljpoA  

Editor: ZHAO Xiaoyu

Proofreading: LI Zeyu