Dispatch from Cache Lounge: Schwarzman, Life, Love, Longing

(Forgive the typos and grammatical mistakes, I’m LITERALLY typing this out from Cache Lounge as David from C6 sings a very emotional song I’ve never heard)

I never expected a karaoke microphone to double as a time machine, but here we are, back in Beijing five years after graduating from the Schwarzman Scholars program. It’s 2:17am in Sanlitun, and the familiar warble of a beloved old pop song fills our private KTV room. Fangzhou – ever the social coordinator – has managed to gather a dozen of us former scholars for this impromptu reunion karaoke night. As I pass the mic and look around at my singing companions, I’m struck by a bizarre feeling that everything has changed, and yet nothing has. Some voices are still impressively good — our resident karaoke divas, Henry and Jesse, can hit those high notes that would make Mariah Carey proud. Others remain hopelessly off-key: a couple of us are still croaking like frogs and loving every minute of it.

For a moment, I pause between verses to really take in the scene under the flashing lights, catching glimpses of how life has moved on for each of us. One friend now sports a wedding ring that glints as he claps along to the music (it suits him). Another has traded his corporate suit for sneakers and a startup hoodie, looking far more relaxed than the stressed consultant I remember. Across the room, our resident academic is animatedly explaining her nearly finished PhD dissertation to anyone who will listen — some things never change. It’s delightful and a little mind-boggling to see how much we all seem a bit more “figured out” than we were back in our student days.

Five years ago, we were all ambitious twenty-somethings with polished resumes and big dreams, bonding over midnight dumpling runs as we tried to figure out what on earth to do with our lives. Now, we’ve grown into early-thirty-somethings who at least pretend to know what we’re doing. As for me, I’m certainly not the same clueless newcomer who arrived in Beijing with two overstuffed suitcases and a serious case of imposter syndrome. I’d like to think I’ve become a bit wiser and more resilient since then (at the very least, I can now sing pop songs off-key with confidence).

Of course, “figured out” is a relative term — perhaps we’ve just gotten better at faking adulthood. I’m self-aware enough to recognize the cheesy reunion montage playing in my head right now, but darn it, it’s hard not to get sentimental. Seeing these friends all together again, I can’t help having one of those “look how far we’ve come” moments (yes, I know how cliche that sounds).

I step out to cool down and catch a glimpse of Beijing through the window. The Sanlitun streets are still buzzing outside, just as lively as I remember, though the billboards have changed and there’s a new futuristic billboard looming where an old mall used to be. It’s crazy how five years can feel like both an instant and an eternity. The last time I wandered these streets, I was a graduate student trying to soak up every bit of China; now I return as a visitor with a flood of memories in tow. The city has kept changing (Beijing never sits still), but in this little karaoke room our past and present are colliding in the most amusing way.

Back inside, someone cues up a throwback song that used to be our unofficial anthem, and we all roar with recognition. Suddenly we’re transported back to those common rooms and late-night study sessions singing (badly) to blow off stress, and the ease with which our camaraderie rekindles is both comforting and astonishing. We slip back into our old banter without missing a beat — teasing about who fell asleep in class or who always hogged the microphone — just like we did five years ago. It turns out enduring friendships can pick up right where they left off, even if we all end up in the same room only once in a blue moon. There’s a special kind of magic in reconnecting with people who knew you during such a formative time; it reminds you that some ties hold strong despite time and distance.

As the night wears on and our voices grow hoarser, I find myself reflecting not just on this evening but on the journey that led us here. That year in Beijing as Schwarzman Scholars was a formative, even transformative, experience for all of us, setting us on paths we couldn’t have imagined at the time. Now, with five more years of “real world” experience under our belts, coming back together like this highlights both how much we’ve grown and how some core parts of us have stayed the same. It feels like the perfect moment to take stock of how that intense year shaped us, what we’ve been through since, and how the world and our own identities have shifted in the meantime. In other words, everything has changed in our lives, and yet here in this karaoke room nothing has – and that paradox is exactly what I find both comforting and fascinating as I look back on it all.

I once spent (almost) a year in Beijing being groomed as a “future global leader” — or so the Schwarzman Scholars program brochure promised. Five years ago, I was one of 141 bright-eyed twenty-somethings at Tsinghua University, immersed in an elite, pressure-cooker fellowship that had us believing we might just change the world. The Schwarzman Scholars program is a prestigious, fully-funded one-year master’s in global affairs at Tsinghua (often called China’s MIT), with an acceptance rate rivaling Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships. In other words, it’s fancy. We were told we were the cream of the crop, destined to solve global problems and join a network of “young global leaders” . No pressure, right?

Walking into Schwarzman College in 2019 felt like stepping into a geopolitical version of The Avengers. My cohort included a Rhodes Scholar, a tech entrepreneur, a national debate champion, a viral NGO founder – basically a collection of overachievers so impressive it was almost comical. Throwing 141 type-A young people into one intense year of living, studying, and networking together was bound to produce both lifelong bonds and a few ego collisions. We formed friendships that felt like family (to this day we refer to the group as our Schwarzfam). As one alumnus put it, spending a year with these “incredible individuals” changed my life and I “learned more from late night conversations and over meals than I have anywhere else” . Whether we were cramming for a Chinese politics exam or helping each other through a quarter-life breakup, we grew closer than I ever imagined possible in such a short time.

Yet amid this camaraderie, arrogance and uncertainty danced a strange tango. On the one hand, it was hard not to get a big head – after all, the world kept telling us we were special. Being labeled a “global young leader” came with a certain buzz. I’ll admit, 24-year-old me rather enjoyed strutting around with that title (at least for a while). I remember feeling a smug little thrill the first time I flashed my program ID at a conference – Schwarzman Scholar, right here. We had been selected from thousands; how could we not feel a bit self-important? My cohort and I would drop big names of guest speakers we met, brag about who got to ask the former Prime Minister a question in class, and casually mention our future plans to save this or that corner of the world. My younger self wore confidence like an ill-fitted suit – proudly, if not quite convincingly.

But uncertainty was ever-present, lurking underneath the surface of our polished résumés. Privately, many of us wondered if the admissions committee had made some kind of mistake. (I joked that my acceptance email must have been meant for the other person named similar to me.) Imagine being surrounded by brilliance and feeling like the imposter in the room – it turns out that’s pretty common, even among high achievers. Psychologists call it impostor syndrome, the persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evident success . We all had it to varying degrees. One moment I’d be confidently debating international trade policy in class; the next, I’d secretly panic that I was the dumbest person in the building. My identity was in flux – was I really a “global leader in the making,” or just a kid bluffing my way through? It was a heady, unsettling mix of ego and insecurity. In hindsight, I realize this is normal in one’s twenties: that volatile cocktail of bravado and uncertainty as you’re still figuring out who you are. As developmental psychologists note, being a young person today often means feeling both “wide-open possibilities and confusion, new freedoms and new fears” . Yup. That was me in a nutshell.

Life as a Schwarzman Scholar wasn’t all high-level seminars and networking dinners. We were in our early twenties, living in Beijing – of course we found time for fun (sometimes too much fun). Picture this: It’s a Friday night after a crushing week of classes and interviews. A bunch of us pile into a couple of beat-up cabs and head for Sanlitun, the city’s famous bar district. We dance with abandon in some smoky club, a motley crew of nationalities belting out the lyrics to whatever pop anthem is playing. There’s always that one guy in a suit (straight from a networking event) doing ridiculous moves, and someone else trying (badly) to teach the DJ how to say “cheers” in Arabic. We toast to surviving another week in the pressure cooker. In those moments, we look less like an elite diplomatic corps and more like, well, college kids on a night out. I remember laughing so hard I cried as one of my classmates – usually a buttoned-up future diplomat type – jumped on a stage speaker to lead our group in a wobbly rendition of Backstreet Boys. So much for gravitas! If any of our professors had walked into that club, they’d have questioned their life’s work building this program.

Of course, the flip side of those wild nights were the quiet, reflective ones. Some of my most vivid memories are the 2 A.M. conversations over hot chocolate in the dorm lounge. The adrenaline of the day (and sometimes the cheap Tsingtao beer) would wear off, and a few of us would tiptoe down to the common room in our pajamas. We’d heat up water in a little kettle and stir in packets of hot cocoa smuggled from home. There in the soft lamp light, slumped on the couch, the real talk would start. We’d confess the doubts we had kept hidden during the day. I feel like everyone here is smarter than me. I’m not sure this career path is what I really want. Do I actually want to be a politician, or is that just what’s expected of me? During these late-night heart-to-hearts, the performative confidence we wore in the classroom melted away. The insecurities behind the “global leader” title came pouring out. It turned out we all needed to hear the same reassurance: “Hey, I feel that way too. You’re not a fraud, you belong here.” Those conversations over hot chocolate were warm in more ways than one – they were a balm to our imposter syndrome and a reminder that beneath the fancy accolades, we were just humans in progress.

Somewhere between the neon haze of Sanlitun and the hushed midnights in the dorm kitchen, I learned a beautiful truth: nobody truly has it all figured out at 24, even if they’re wearing the tag of a “future world leader.” We were all faking it to make it, supporting each other when the cracks showed through. By day, we might give polished speeches about global issues; by night, we admitted we were issues unto ourselves. This duality was oddly comforting. It taught me that confidence can be real and fake at the same time – you can project strength even as you quake inside. In fact, I suspect that lesson has helped me greatly in professional life since then. I know now that even accomplished leaders sometimes feel like they’re winging it, and that’s okay . The key is having people around you who see behind your mask and still trust you (and whom you trust in return). Five years later, I cherish those memories of Beijing nights – both the rowdy and the reflective – because they remind me how much growth can happen when you allow yourself to be both strong and vulnerable.

And talk about vulnerability: nothing humbles you quite like realizing the disorienting largeness of the world. I recall one clear fall afternoon during our program’s orientation trip, standing on the stairs of the Forbidden Palace. The crowd stretched on endlessly, ancient stones snaking seamlessly into the city. As I looked out, a thought hit me hard: The world is so much bigger than my ambition. In that moment, perched on centuries-old bricks, I felt very small. It was almost a relief – a surrender of the youthful notion that I had to conquer the world. The world was too large, too complex, too ancient for any one of us to grasp, let alone control. That Forbidden Palace moment has stayed with me. Whenever I get too in my head about being “important,” I think back to that feeling of being a tiny speck on a vast landscape. It’s disorienting, yes, but also grounding. It reminds me that leading isn’t about knowing or controlling everything – it’s about knowing yourself and doing your part in a story much bigger than you.

Fast forward to now: I’m in my early thirties, and life looks very different than it did in Beijing. The five years since Schwarzman have been a crash course in growing up, one that no classroom could fully prepare me for. In many ways, I spent a good chunk of my mid-to-late twenties processing that intense year and what it meant for my identity. When I graduated from the program, I had this naive idea that I had arrived – that I was launching into the world fully formed, with a clear mission (and maybe a cape flapping behind me for good measure). If only growing up were that simple. I’ve since learned about what some psychologists call the “myth of arrival” – the false belief that one day you’ll reach a point where you’ve got it all figured out and live happily ever after in self-actualized perfection . Let me tell you, that myth got busted real quick. Finishing Schwarzman Scholars wasn’t an ending; it was a beginning of a much messier journey.

Identity formation doesn’t end at 22 or 25. In fact, emerging from the program, I found myself going through a bit of an identity crisis. Suddenly, I was no longer the token “global young leader” on a pedestal; I was a newbie in a workplace, or a grad student among many other bright peers, trying to find my unique path again. It was unsettling to lose the ready-made identity that “Schwarzman Scholar” gave me. I had spent that year feeling like I was part of something important, and afterwards I grappled with a simple but difficult question: Who am I when I’m not wearing the label? This is a classic experience in our mid-twenties – many of my friends went through similar existential puzzles after college or fellowships. In fact, professionals even have a term for the angst of this stage: the quarter-life crisis, a period in one’s 20s of anxiety and self-doubt about your direction in life . (Basically the junior version of a midlife crisis, with less sports cars and more LinkedIn stalking.) I checked all the boxes: questioning my career choices, wondering if I was in the right city, oscillating between wanting to save the world and wanting to just save enough for rent. It’s comforting now to know this turmoil was normal. Research shows that in our twenties, we often feel “in between” – not a kid, not quite a full adult – and undergo a lot of exploration. In my case, that meant realizing that identity is a moving target. The confident global affairs wunderkind I tried to be at 24 was only one version of me; I’ve since evolved into other versions, and I’m sure I will change again. As Erik Erikson’s theory of development suggests, figuring out who you are is not a one-time task but a life-long process that gets revisited at different stages . Five years ago, I thought I knew myself; now I smile at that thought, appreciating that not knowing is part of the adventure.

Along with a shifting sense of identity came a deepening emotional maturity (or so I’d like to hope!). In the Schwarzman days, I was high on inspiration and low on real-world experience. I had a bit of a savior complex – many of us did – and a short supply of humility. The years since have a way of knocking sense into you. I’ve faced real setbacks: a project I poured my heart into failed spectacularly, I had tough feedback at work that stung, I moved to a new city and felt the loneliness of starting from scratch. These experiences were humbling, sometimes painfully so. But they also tempered me. I learned to handle criticism without falling apart (pro tip: you are not in fact the sum total of your LinkedIn achievements), and I learned to ask for help when drowning instead of stubbornly trying to do it all. I began to understand what emotional resilience really means – not just pushing through challenges, but also giving myself permission to feel disappointment or fear, and then grow from it. One big marker of maturity for me was embracing vulnerability as a strength rather than a weakness. Back in the program, I often hid my anxieties; now I’m more comfortable saying “I don’t know” or “I need help.” Ironically, that has made me more confident and capable, not less. It’s like a muscle I had to develop: the ability to fall on my face, laugh (or cry) about it, and get back up, a bit wiser. I also find I’m less reactive now – things that would have set off my temper or ego at 24 roll off my back at 29. (Not everything, mind you, but progress is progress!) There’s a calm that comes with time and perspective, an ability to step outside your own head and see the bigger picture. If 24-year-old me was racing at 100 mph with his hair on fire, 30-year-old me has learned to pump the brakes when needed and even enjoy the ride.

Another aspect of growing up has been the evolution of relationships. During the Schwarzman year, we were all in the same boat, living, studying, socializing together – friendships formed organically and intensely. Post-program, we scattered to the winds: some friends returned to their home countries, others stayed in China, many moved to new cities for new jobs. Keeping those bonds strong took effort. In the years since, I’ve learned that adult friendships sometimes require scheduling Skype calls across time zones, or writing the occasional long email update when life gets busy. It’s been heartwarming to see that the family feeling endures: whenever I travel to a city where a Schwarzie (yes, that’s what we call each other) lives, I have a couch to crash on and a ready tour guide. Our relationships have matured too. We’re no longer passively sharing the same experience in a bubble; now we’re actively supporting each other through very different life paths. One friend is knee-deep in a finance career in New York, another is doing a PhD in environmental policy in London, yet another ran for local office back home. Our twenties have taken us in diverse directions, but we cheer each other on like proud siblings. On the flip side, I’ve also learned to accept that not all friendships last. Some of my closest buddies from that year naturally drifted away as our lives diverged. It stung a bit to lose touch with people who once felt like family, but I understand now that this, too, is part of growing up. People change, circumstances change, and sometimes the only time you all get together is for a wedding (or sadly, a Zoom reunion during a pandemic). The friendships that truly matter find a way to endure, even if contact is infrequent. And new meaningful relationships also come into your life to fill the spaces. In short, I’ve gone from wanting everyone to like me and be my best friend, to focusing on the quality of a few deep friendships and being okay with letting others fade. That realization might sound a bit somber, but actually it’s freeing. It means I invest my energy in the people who really matter and who reciprocate, which makes those connections even richer.

Perhaps the biggest change from my mid-twenties to now is a growing self-awareness. The Schwarzman experience gave me a crash course in self-discovery, but the years after gave me the full degree program. I started therapy (best decision ever), which helped shine a light on my blind spots and patterns. I became more aware of why I react to certain situations the way I do (oh hello, perfectionist streak), and how my upbringing and that intense year in Beijing shaped some of my beliefs. I also got more comfortable sitting with my emotions rather than burying them under constant activity. In my early twenties, I kept busy to avoid overthinking – a common tactic for ambitious types. Now, I actually set aside time to reflect – journaling on Sunday nights, taking solo walks without my phone, stuff I would’ve found painfully slow or indulgent back then. This self-awareness has made me a better friend and colleague too. I can communicate my needs and boundaries more clearly (finally learning to say no when I’m overwhelmed, instead of overcommitting and then secretly resenting it). I notice when old insecurities flare up – like if I’m intimidated by someone’s accomplishments, I catch myself and remember that everyone has their own journey. It’s an ongoing process (I suspect it always will be), but I feel a lot more grounded in who I am now. And part of who I am is someone who is still learning. Five years ago, I might have tried to present a shiny image of success; today, I’d rather present an honest image of a work-in-progress. Ironically, embracing that I don’t know everything has made me more confident in what I do know, and more open to learning from others. It’s like the pressure to arrive at some ideal persona is gone – I’m happy to be forever arriving, a continuous version update of myself. There’s a lovely quote I once heard (source escapes me) that goes: “We are all unfinished masterpieces.” Cheesy? Maybe. But it resonates deeply now. I’m less fixated on the masterpiece part and more at peace with the unfinished part.

While I was busy navigating my twenties, the world around me was shifting on its axis – politically, economically, technologically, socially. Growing up in this era has meant growing up in constant change. Sometimes I joke that our Schwarzman class picked the wildest five-year period to be unleashed into the real world. We tossed our graduation caps in 2019 (figuratively – since we were sent home midway re COVID-19), and within months the world was in upheaval. The geopolitical climate that inspired the Schwarzman program in the first place (building bridges between China and the West) took some hard hits: U.S.-China relations went through deep freezes and occasional thaws, trade tensions rose, and suddenly the idea of being a friendly liaison between East and West felt a lot more complicated. Many of us had planned careers around international cooperation, and found ourselves recalibrating in a time of growing nationalism and skepticism. Talk about a reality check – the problems we aimed to solve were not waiting politely for us to solve them; they were morphing in real time.

We had the dubious pleasure of graduating between 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic – the granddaddy of disruptive events in our lifetime. Overnight, the world locked down. For us young professionals, it was a bizarre transition: one minute I was taking friends around India for a Deep Dive, the next I was back in my childhood bedroom attending Zoom meetings in pajama pants, wondering if this was really happening. All those lessons on leadership and adaptability were immediately put to the test. I was supposed to be a globetrotting changemaker by now, yet there I was baking banana bread and anxiously reading pandemic updates each morning. It was a humbling reminder that control is an illusion; the world can upend your plans in a heartbeat. But I also saw how my Schwarzman peers rose to the occasion. Some jumped into action, coordinating PPE donations and translating health guidelines (one friend even helped the WHO efforts in China) – truly living out the program’s ethos of global leadership during crisis. I tried to do my part too, volunteering locally and checking on neighbors. The pandemic was a crash course in resilience and collective responsibility. It made the world feel both smaller (we were all in it together) and larger (so many people suffering across the globe) at the same time. In my personal growth, that period forced me to cultivate patience and empathy in ways I hadn’t before. It’s one thing to study public policy; it’s another to live through a global emergency where policy meets everyday life.

The economic landscape has been a rollercoaster as well. We entered the workforce in a time of relative global growth, then witnessed a sharp downturn and uncertainty, then shifts in how and where we work. I’ve seen friends lose jobs and find unexpected new opportunities; I’ve felt the squeeze of economic anxiety myself and learned to budget (alas, ordering takeout every night in Beijing was not a sustainable life skill). The turbulence taught me to stay flexible – to save for a rainy day, to pivot when an industry shakes up, and not to tie my self-worth solely to my career achievements. If the Schwarzman year gave me big dreams, the years after gave me a dose of pragmatism to balance those dreams.

And oh, technology – how it’s changed since we were those kids partying in Sanlitun. In 2018, I didn’t even know what TikTok was; by 2023, some of my cohort were using it to share educational content or start businesses. We went from having occasional video calls to living on video calls. AI went from a sci-fi concept we debated in class to something that’s writing half of our emails (and hopefully not this blog post… ahem). Keeping up with tech has been both exciting and dizzying. It’s another reminder that learning never really stops. The world will keep reinventing itself, and so must we. One funny consequence: our Schwarzman group chat has basically turned into a tech support line for each other (“Can someone please verify my WeChat codes?”). We’re all trying to stay afloat in the information tidal wave.

Socially and politically, the last five years have been a whirlwind of change too. From global protest movements to debates on climate change to shifts in cultural norms, it feels like the ground is always moving. Growing up in this era has meant learning to re-examine my assumptions constantly. The views I held at 24 have been challenged by real-world events and diverse perspectives. In Beijing, we often discussed abstract concepts of leadership and ethics; in the years after, I had to live my values in concrete ways – whether that was speaking up on issues that mattered to me, or listening and learning when I realized I had blind spots (and did I discover some blind spots…) The sheer pace at which news and change hit us can be disorienting. There were times I felt overwhelmed by how fast the world was pivoting: it’s hard to feel like a capable adult when every year introduces a “once-in-a-lifetime” crisis or breakthrough. But in a strange way, this constant flux has been a great teacher. It taught me that adaptability is perhaps the most important skill of all. In the Schwarzman program we often heard the mantra of being a “flexible leader” – I don’t think I fully grasped it until I lived through these past years. Flexibility isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a survival mechanism for personal growth. It means being able to change your mind when presented with new facts, to change course when the path you were on becomes untenable, and to maintain your core values even when the context shifts around you.

All this change also reinforced the lesson from the Forbidden Palace: humility in the face of complexity. The world did not simplify itself just because a bunch of smart twenty-something-olds graduated with big plans. If anything, it became more complex and challenging. Rather than disillusioning me, this realization has slowly made me more grounded. I no longer feel that youthful delusion that “I alone will fix it.” Instead, I’m finding power in the opposite: acknowledging what I don’t know and collaborating with others who have complementary strengths. The problems out there – from pandemics to climate change to bridging cultural divides – are enormous. None of us can tackle them alone, and certainly not in a year or two. And that’s okay. Growing up for me has meant understanding that my role in the grand scheme might be small, but it can still be meaningful. It’s less about heroic solo leadership and more about collective effort and continuous learning. The world will keep changing, and I will keep changing with it, one lesson at a time.

Five years after that intense year in Beijing, I’m still the same person and a completely different person, all at once. The Schwarzman Scholars experience was a defining chapter of my early twenties – a chapter full of excitement, struggle, growth, and yes, a touch of youthful arrogance. I look back on that younger me with a lot of warmth. I don’t cringe at her overconfidence (well, maybe slightly when I recall some of my cockier moments); instead, I empathize with it. She needed that confidence to leap into the unknown, and she needed the humbling that followed to become who I am now. If I could talk to her, I’d say, “Enjoy the ride. You’ll learn soon enough that growing up is less about arriving at wisdom and more about continuously stumbling toward it. And that’s a feature, not a bug.”

Writing this reflection, I realize how grateful I am for all of it: the crazy Sanlitun nights, the heartfelt dorm conversations, the big wins, the crushing fails, the friends who became family, and the mentors who showed me tough love. Being a Schwarzman Scholar gave me a front-row seat to global affairs and a fast-track to self-discovery, but life after the program truly taught me what it means to grow up. It’s not a one-time transformation or a linear path upwards. It’s more like a spiral staircase – you keep going up, but you revisit old themes from a higher perspective. I’ve re-encountered imposter syndrome, ego, purpose, relationships at different points, each time understanding them a little better. And I suspect the spiral continues into my thirties and beyond.

There’s a certain humor and humility in realizing that at 30, I’m not the world-beater I once fancied myself to be at 24 – I have not (yet) brokered peace deals or revolutionized an industry or ended world hunger (sorry, 24-year-old me). Instead, I’ve made smaller dents: heading WTFund here, contributing to a meaningful project there, being a better listener, a better friend, a better daughter. And honestly, that feels just as fulfilling. The grandiosity has given way to a more sustainable drive. I still want to make an impact, but I’m comfortable if it’s not front-page news. In a way, I’ve scaled down my ego and scaled up my dedication. And I can laugh at myself more – which is always a good thing.

So here I am, unable to say no to a shot mid-KTV (some habits never die), thinking about how far I’ve come since those Beijing days. The world is big and chaotic, and I am small and flawed – and that is perfectly fine. I’m armed with some hard-earned wisdom, a support network of amazing people, and an ongoing curiosity about what comes next. If the past five years are any indication, the next five will have their share of surprises and lessons. Growing up truly has no finish line, and I’m learning to love that. After all, life would be pretty boring if at 30 I checked a box and said “Alright, I am now a complete adult. Done!” No thanks. I’d rather keep learning, keep evolving, and occasionally keep making a fool of myself in the process.

In conclusion (if this can be called a conclusion), being a Schwarzman Scholar was a formative adventure in my growth, but it was just one part of a much larger journey. I carry its lessons and memories with me – the ambition it sparked, the friends it gave me, the perspective it instilled. And as I continue on this winding road from my twenties into my thirties, I do so with a smile and maybe a slight smirk, because I know one day I’ll look back on this version of me and chuckle at how much I still had to learn. And that’s okay. That’s growing up. The journey continues… now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go sing This Is What You Came For with Seyoung and Fangzhou and get ready for whatever tomorrow brings. Cheers to ongoing growth, and may we all remain proudly “unfinished.”