[CHEER Magazine] When NTU Students Stop Dreaming: A Smooth Journey, Yet Unable to Make Their Own Decisions

According to an internal survey conducted by National Taiwan University (NTU), 40 years ago, 80% of students chose to go overseas to pursue degrees. Today, that figure has dropped to only 20%. What has changed NTU students? Why have these outstanding individuals, who stand at the top of the academic pyramid, become increasingly conservative and lost the courage to take risks and explore?

NTU President Chen Wen-Chang said in an exclusive interview with CommonWealth Learning that he has observed a growing sense of uncertainty among NTU students about their futures.

"When you ask current NTU students what they want to do after graduation, most of them will not immediately answer, 'I want to work at a world-class company,' nor will they say, 'I want to study at Harvard or MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).' Their answers are often: 'I'll try applying for graduate school first,' or 'I'll look for a job first and see how it goes.'"

This is a sharp contrast to their mindset during high school. Chen said:

"If you asked them when they were in high school, they would definitely answer without hesitation: 'I want to get into NTU!' But after they actually enter NTU and you ask them the same question again, they struggle to give an answer."

Chen observed that these top-performing students, after gaining admission to NTU, often lose their drive to pursue greater challenges and lack the courage to step outside their comfort zones.

This raises an important question: Why do students who have consistently excelled throughout their lives lose a clear sense of direction after entering one of the best universities? Have they become "a generation that is successful on the outside but feels lost internally"?

Education commentator Hsu Sheng-Hsiu, who is also an NTU Electrical Engineering alumnus, highlighted a similar phenomenon in an article published on The News Lens. He pointed out that the tendency of students from top universities to become more conservative is closely related to the "good student syndrome."

These elite students have grown up accustomed to following rules, meeting the expectations of their parents and society, and working hard to enter the best schools. However, after achieving this goal, many lack the ability to independently explore their own interests and directions.

Because their previous model of success was based on "following a prescribed path step by step," they suddenly lose a clear roadmap after entering NTU. They no longer know how to set more ambitious goals or determine what they truly want to pursue in the future.