Winning The Lottery

Some lessons and observations from my time at Stanford.

Mural on Stanford Memorial Church

I remember the moment I won the lottery. It was early December, eight years ago, almost to the day. I was at a swim meet in Ohio, doing my best to stay warm. Waves of adrenaline washed over me as I thought about my upcoming swim events. I tried to distract myself with my phone, clicking between texts, emails, and Snapchat. Suddenly, a new email appeared in my inbox, seductive and demure, with a simple subject line: “Your Stanford Application.” The message nonchalantly informed me that “Your application status has been updated with an admission decision.”

I called my mom over, and we opened it together.

As soon as I accepted my admission, I felt the weight of Stanford’s name. In high school, I stopped talking about where I would go after graduation; it felt too awkward. The few people I told seemed to use me as a measuring stick. They always wanted to know my ACT score. They asked if I was valedictorian, what my grades were like, and what I wanted to do or be. I didn’t answer them.

Before starting college, I took two years off to work as a missionary for my church in Brazil. I lived as a modern-day monk, studying sacred texts for hours each day, teaching others about Jesus, and seeking opportunities to alleviate the pain and suffering of my fellow beings. We cleaned graffiti-covered schools, taught English, and comforted addicts. We had little internet access; I didn’t have a smartphone, and our internet use was limited by choice. To this day, I still discover cultural moments, artists, or movies I missed because of my time in Brazil. Despite the disciplined work, I found peace, enjoying each day and the people I worked with, served, and met.

After two years, I returned home and had just three weeks to readjust to life in the U.S. before school began. Even so, New Student Orientation felt overwhelming. We were introduced to the university’s approach to sex, pronouns, and identity. As a missionary, I had not dated and had taught others about chastity. So, I blushed through a TED-talk-style presentation where speakers shared their experiences with sex; a story about abstinence was notably absent. I was also unsettled by the containers of condoms that seemed to wink at me on every floor of every dorm.

We announced our pronouns as part of our introductions, but I never encountered someone whose pronouns differed from what their appearance suggested. I wondered why they didn’t ask for a more practical introductory detail, like hometown or intended major. I also attended talks on the diverse experiences of the student body, listening with shock as students shared stories of experimenting with gender identity and sexuality or recounting histories of abuse, addiction, and self-harm. While well-meaning, it made me feel like I needed a story like theirs to fit in.

During that first week, I went with some dorm-mates to TAP (The Axe and Palm), one of the few campus restaurants. We were excited to meet each other but eager to leave no doubt that we belonged. As we slurped milkshakes and picked at fries, one girl casually mentioned pitching a company on Shark Tank—and securing funding. Another student asked about the company because he had started a medical device business in high school. They acknowledged my missionary service, but the conversation quickly moved on. Later, I saw them swapping LinkedIns.

Initially, I was interested in military service, as most of my family serves in the armed forces. I enrolled in NROTC and, every Thursday, donned a uniform and commuted an hour to Berkeley to join other midshipmen for drills and lectures. My dorm-mates were a little surprised by my uncommon path; only five Stanford students were in my unit. While I enjoyed the physical challenges, I felt caught between worlds. I worked on math problems during monotonous lectures on Naval terminology. During the week, I had to find off-campus services to press my uniform or cut my hair to regulation. With classes stacked on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the long training days took a toll, and I eventually withdrew. I was uncertain about my future but eager to see what Stanford could offer.

As I threw myself into my studies, I experienced imposter syndrome. The writer Malcolm Gladwell critiques elite universities for fostering this feeling in capable students. He argues that happiness is relative; people compare their success to that of their peers. Studying alongside extraordinarily talented peers can discourage students who might otherwise thrive elsewhere. They feel like imposters, as though they don’t belong or won’t succeed.

I felt this acutely in my first math class. Before enrolling, I had placed into Linear Algebra and thought it would be a refresher of high school algebra. It was not. As I struggled to understand null spaces and eigenvectors, I learned that several high performers had already taken Linear Algebra in high school. This pattern repeated across subjects. Those who excelled often had years of prior experience, often with highly educated private-school teachers. They were swimming laps while the rest of us were still learning the strokes.

For those of us struggling, another obstacle loomed: asking questions in class. In this competitive environment, the last thing a new freshman—or “frosh”—wanted was to look stupid. Asking questions meant admitting you didn’t understand. The fear of being exposed as a fraud often overpowered intellectual curiosity. I remember the university president explicitly encouraging frosh to ask questions, aware of the psychological battle being waged within.

At the same time, some students weaponized questions to flaunt their intelligence. Often, they asked convoluted questions even the professor struggled to understand. If a professor made a minor error, students were quick to correct them, hoping to earn respect from others.

In my church community, I found an unexpected blend of faith and intellect. Classmates from my faith approached religion with a scholarly rigor I had never seen, introducing me to theological commentaries and academic analyses of our religion. Yet at times, our respect for the scholar sometimes overshadowed our appreciation of the priest: if a religious instructor felt too dogmatic or orthodox, they felt out-of-place and alien; they did not appreciate nuance or Nietzsche. In our spiritual discussions, we sometimes forgot that our religion was founded by carpenters and fishermen.

I began to see glimpses of an elite, exclusive world. I noticed a surprising number of students had siblings or parents that had attended Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, or Yale. I saw stickers on laptops for something called “Philip Exeter.” I heard about management consulting and investment banking. Dorm-mates vacationed in Italy, retired to massive summer homes, and dined at the French Laundry. They name-dropped celebrities and billionaires. The students flexed and postured, providing examples of their wealth, erudition, and family success. I felt embarrassed I didn’t have a summer home in a beautiful place, then felt embarrassed that I felt embarrassed.

Outside of the classroom, and within days of moving to campus, students began to discuss summer internships. I was dismayed to learn that I had already missed several deadlines for interesting opportunities. Some of my friends were crushing difficult classes, already secured summer internships, and joined some pre-professional clubs, but I always saw them hanging out in the common areas of my dorm. I would hurry past them to my room to start working on a problem set. It felt like they didn’t need as much time as I did to fit in.

This phenomenon is well-known at Stanford and has its own moniker: “duck syndrome.” Stanford students feel like we must appear like a duck gliding across the glassy surface of a lake. We must be athletic, attractive, and brilliant while simultaneously holding leadership positions in clubs and landing prestigious internships. Yet, we must also avoid any sign of effort. Like the duck’s frantic, flapping feet, any effort to be perfect must also be hidden. There can be no cracks in our shiny facade, no sweat on our brow, no blisters on our hands. If you drown, you must do so gracefully.

Having withdrawn from ROTC, I sought camaraderie elsewhere. Someone in my dorm recommended I try rugby. I had never played but had always been intimidated by the sport. I was surprised by the complete contrast with my experience at Stanford to that point. I relished the emphasis on hard-work, the elimination of class, and the bonds between team-mates that emerge from playing a dangerous sport. There were no excuses, no performances, only pure act. A player had to make the tackle and support their team-mates in the ruck. I had to confront my fears head-on, often in the form of a large, fast man running straight at me.

Right as our season started, we were all sent home because of COVID. The carefully crafted world of Stanford scattered overnight. I found myself distanced from my friends, my team, and Stanford’s social pressures. After months of isolation, I recruited some classmates to move to Utah, where we could create our own Stanford as we attended virtually, in the shadow of another university.

We appreciated the energy of living near a university campus, but the contrast to Stanford was striking. Because of our rigorous classes, we often spent long hours in the university library. As the hours ticked by, the local students would slowly trickle out until only a few people remained with me and my Stanford classmates amidst the desks and books. Walking home to eat dinner before returning to the library, we’d consistently see students throwing frisbees and playing spikeball. There was a flood of constant social events, game nights, and bonfires. We’d return to the library, determined to get ahead while secretly wishing we had more time to enjoy the social scene.

Still seeking validation that I belonged at Stanford, I competed for a spot in a prestigious club and successfully joined a student management consulting group. We solved problems for real organizations, and I initially enjoyed the problem-solving, even if we didn’t see the results. However, I began to see through the veneer of prestige: I spent long-hours adjusting logos and charts on an overpriced slide deck with mediocre recommendations.

Thanks in part to the easier pass/fail grading, I took a genuine interest in my studies. I found that professors in office hours were pleased to talk to a student hungry for knowledge amidst the crowds of those looking for a letter of recommendation or an answer to a homework problem. Genuine curiosity was surprisingly rare. That discovery made me realize that perhaps the masses are not always right. Perhaps many students, despite their great intelligence, affluent backgrounds, and scrappy ambition, are simply misguided and chasing the superficial.

This discovery coincided with an unexpected problem: many of our friends in Utah expressed a desire to meet more people and go on dates. However, they found it incredibly difficult because of the pandemic. Drawing on Stanford’s entrepreneurial spirit, I mobilized some friends to build an app to serve local students struggling to find connections amidst the days of masks and quarantine. For the first time, I understood why so many of my classmates were drawn to entrepreneurship – not for prestige, but for the thrill of solving genuine problems. This led me to forgo management consulting in pursuit of technology entrepreneurship, while also taking my own romantic aspirations more seriously.

Months later, I met a wonderful woman and fell in love. She was unlike anyone I’d ever dated, and I loved being with her. We dated for the next few months and throughout the summer. We continued our courtship after Stanford reopened its campus. I returned to California while she finished her final year of school in Utah. There were many days where we were frustrated by the limited time I had to talk; the endless homework felt like an intrusion into something more real.

After I proposed, my decision to get married stumped many of my classmates. When I told them about it, the first question they often asked was, “Why?” Why would I lock myself to a woman so soon when I was so young? Why would I marry someone who didn’t also go to an elite university? Why would I marry someone before either of us had established (hopefully prestigious) careers?

Ultimately, what I learned at Stanford was how to think for myself. Confronted with a culture foreign to my own upbringing and desperate to belong, I looked to my fellow students for guidance and at times lost sight of the lessons I learned from my family and on my mission. While I appreciate my new analytical skills and blossoming ambition, I reject the premise implicit at Stanford: that your worth is measured by your income, the prestige of your job, and your family’s connections. I rediscovered the key lessons from my mission: happiness, for me, is found in intellectual curiosity, acts of service, and genuine relationships with others, whether with friends, team-mates, family members, or the woman I would marry.

My decision to take a quarter off Stanford to get married, to me, represented the moment I stepped off the rat-race to prestige and achievement and pursue something more real and more lovely. I couldn’t help but think, as I saw my soon-to-be wife walking down the aisle dressed in a gown of beautiful white, that I truly won the lottery.