ZH: In the American high school system it seems it is such a clear path: you do your junior year, you study really hard, you take the SAT, you apply to colleges in your senior year and then you go to one of, let’s say 20 universities that are in your range, this pre-prescribed list, based on like what size you want, what you are interested in.

When I got into Minerva suddenly that cleared that whole kind of foggy vision I had and that was the moment I realised that that was never what I wanted. It took someone telling me there was something else to even realise that, but in terms of what I was expecting, I knew it would be a small group of us, I knew it would be new. I didn’t know what that meant beyond that, but I was really excited, especially to connect with the other students and to have the experience of living and learning with people, not just from all over the world but people who were like-minded and equally as interested in experiencing new things and trying something else as I was. I just couldn’t wait for that.

I knew it would be a small group of us, I knew it would be new. I didn’t know what that meant beyond that, but I was really excited.

The PIE: And how did the actual experience meet your expectations?

ZH: Oh my gosh, it exceeded any conceptual expectation that I had. It was so much more than I could have ever have hoped it would be. Certainly there were difficulties, there were things that didn’t work, things that we had to change and improve. There were different kinds of challenges than I think most of my peers experienced in the traditional system.

The PIE: When you swap stories about freshman year with your friends who took the traditional HE path, what is that like?

ZH: Mine involves a lot fewer parties! But I would say it really is apples to oranges and I rely on that expression which I guess is a bit lazy but it is like we are not talking about the same thing. We have a group message and they would say, “I was thinking about not going to class today because I am really tired,” that is not a thing for me.

The PIE: Do Minerva students skip class?

ZH: I can’t speak for this year but certainly in my year, you did not skip class, no. So there is no class skipping, no big parties. People often ask me, “do you feel like you missed out on the traditional experience at all?” And the simple answer is, yes, I missed having the traditional experience. But that isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want the big football games or the pep rallies. I didn’t really want the frat scene and ultimately I didn’t really want the campus thing and so I’m definitely not getting that, but I really value the experience of going out into the city, meeting people who are working in interesting industries and feeling like a citizen of San Francisco. That was really valuable to me and that just doesn’t have a parallel to at least what my friends are doing.

The PIE: I have read a few articles that say the Minerva learning platform is quite intense. How do you find it?

ZH: I think intense is the right word if you remove that kind of dog-eat-dog connotation that you have with it. Often when you talk about academic experiences being intense now, it means vicious or unhealthy or inhuman and this is not that. This is intense because the conversations are supposed to be vast, you are supposed to always be on your toes and moving and doing something, but it is not intense like the professor is looking to trip you up at every moment, or the question means that you are going to spend grueling hours poring over really esoteric text. But if you get cold-called, you better have been paying attention because not only are you now expected to answer and feed off what other people said, but your face is on screen, everyone is looking at you.

People often ask me, ‘do you feel like you missed out on the traditional experience at all?’ And the simple answer is, yes

The PIE: What are your classmates like? Are they all your age?

ZH: No, not at all. Our age range in my founding class was 17-24 if I am not mistaken, but generally our average lies around 19. They are a really amazingly diverse group of people in terms of interests, life experiences, naturally nationality. Even what their concept of nationality means is really mixed. One of the really cool things about Minerva is that it attracts people from all different walks of life and so there are plenty of students my age or many of my friends are a year older because they are transfer students – students who have started in higher education and then have been really frustrated in their existing system and seen Minerva as having an opportunity to not have those same frustrations, not sitting through those lectures they really dislike and things like that. Or it attracts a lot of students who take gap years.

The PIE: You said you found Minerva because of an article online, but how much time passed between that article and actually applying?

ZH: Well, funnily enough, it was already past the regular decision deadline, luckily they extended it, by maybe just a few weeks actually, so I just sneaked in. I applied effectively immediately, as soon as I found it, because it was a rush and also because I knew, I really had a moment there, I can’t remember another time in my life where I wanted something this clearly and this badly.

The PIE: Did you think you were a shoo-in, like ‘yeah, they’re going to love me’?

ZH: No, I didn’t think I was going to get in at all! Minerva was my top choice absolutely but I didn’t think I was going to get in. So imagine my surprise when I did, I really was shocked.

The PIE: You studied abroad in high school, didn’t you? Tell me what you hope to get from Minerva in terms of an international experience.

The ability to study in a whole bunch of different places that were selected because they were culturally different was really important to me

ZH: Yeah, I did, I studied abroad in Spain in my second year, so when I looked at American schools that was really really important to me. One huge concern that I had was that I really valued the type of experience I had in high school which was fully immersive. It was just me as the only American student in this small town where nobody spoke English and I knew that wasn’t what university study abroad was but there were certain characteristics of my experience I was looking to recreate, mainly the immersion and the language.

I would ask about that in traditional universities and they would always answer, “Don’t worry, you will live with other American students from our university and all our your classes are in English and it is really safe and you’ll be fine.” That is not a bad experience at all, it is completely valid, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. When we talked about what it meant to be globally minded, I wasn’t ideologically aligned with those universities, in this regard anyway.

Coming to Minerva, I really valued that I would get to study in a lot of countries because I also frowned upon the idea of going to one country for two to four months and saying, “Well now I understand the world”. So the ability to study in a whole bunch of different places that were selected because they were culturally different was really important to me and then to do it alongside students with vastly different perspectives to myself, I was really really excited by that.

The PIE: Would you recommend the experience to a friend?

ZH: Absolutely.

The PIE: To any friend?

It is not enough to want to go to a different country, you have to want to want to go to the country for the sake of really experiencing that country

ZH: No, let me catch that. For the right student I would say absolutely 100%.

The PIE: What kind of student?

ZH: I don’t want to use Minerva lexicon, but students who are really independent and globally minded and despite the fact those feel like buzz words, it is true. It is not enough to want to go to a different country, you have to want to want to go to the country for the sake of really experiencing that country.

You have to be ready to be humbled by the country, not just to take a photo and show that you were there. You have to be curious because it is not all served to you on a platter. The onus is on you to make the most of the city, to find the little corners and the people and to start the conversations that are going to give you local bearing. So you have to have that desire and motivation.

The PIE: You’re now working with Minerva as part of your gap year experience to help build the the Berlin operations where students will start studying in September. Tell me what it’s like to be a part of the construction.

ZH: That was very much part of the founding year experience anyway – there was so much that needed to be established, there weren’t student organisations, if we wanted a food system we had to come up with one and propose it.

But right now I have an internship in Berlin with Marielle [managing director at Minerva for Europe and the Middle East] which means that basically I help her to develop the Berlin campus but more often than not I just speak to students on Skype. I suppose it’s the long distance equivalent of campus tour guide. I tell the students what we are about, answer any questions they may have, because naturally there are plenty. It is awesome for me because I meet future students. It sometimes seems silly as someone that’s maybe a year or two older than them to say I see so much of myself in them but you can tell when a student really resonates with Minerva because they light up in a way.

The other part of it is I help with student organisation on the student experience team. That has been really exciting because I get to design some of the co-curriculars or come up with ideas for ways students can get involved with the city.