ChinAI #309: Leaving Tech Giants to Teach at Junior Colleges
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Feature Translation: Fleeing from big tech companies, they flock to junior colleges to be teachers
Context: During grad school, Mango1 dedicated herself to making her resume look good for the big tech companies. After graduating in 2022, she joined an Internet company’s marketing department, with promises of a high salary, stable benefits, and relaxed atmosphere. Two years later, as her company’s performance declined and the accompanying layoffs infused each day with uncertainty — she felt “like a screw trapped in a fixed system” — Mango left the company to work at a junior college [大专]. In this week’s feature translation, reporting for Perpetual Light Studio [极昼工作室], Shenglin Yin uncovers why so many people are switching career paths to teach at junior colleges.
Key Takeaways: Why has teaching at junior colleges become a safe harbor for those feeling from jobs at big tech companies?
Stability and winter/summer breaks = safe shores. In fact, celebrity teacher/influencer Zhang Xuefeng has long recommended this track, which is seen as more relaxed than primary/secondary school teachers with heavy teaching workloads or university professors who must publish or perish.
Some anecdotal evidence that more people are interested in this track. 1) “A while ago, Mango went to a job fair with her friend who had been laid off. She observed that the line in front of a private higher education institution was the longest. 2) The second-tier junior college that hired Mango recently raised its minimum academic qualification for a full-time teaching position from a master's degree to a doctorate — a sign that competition has become fiercer for these jobs.
Mango has taken advantage of her free time during summer and winter breaks. Last summer she went to Xining and the Hexi Corridor. During the winter, she went to Haikou and Sanya.
Many who escape Internet companies still find the traces of their former jobs in the junior college system.
Mango is still trapped in the world of KPIs. She closely tracks the requirements to for promotion (“kill monsters and level up”) from teaching assistant to lecturer to associate professor to professor. From the article: “The public junior college where Mango is located requires a certain amount of class hours, a paper, and two years of part-time counselor [辅导员]2 experience to be promoted from teaching assistant to lecturer. In addition, there will be an end-of-year assessment every year. In addition to teaching, proctoring exams and taking students to participate in competitions have corresponding scores. If you can win a prize in the competition, get a high score, and be rated as ‘excellent’, you will have priority in the professional evaluation.”
After being laid off from a company where she managed a team of 50, Yuqing Yang also joined a junior college. Her school also regards student performance in competition as “landmark achievements” that could help the junior college upgrade into a university that grants four-year bachelor degrees. The article reads: “Yang said that this also led to the internal competition among junior college teachers: try to participate in as many competitions as possible, or form a group with old teachers who have the resources to participate in higher-level competitions: ‘Involution is inevitable.’”
Unlike Mango, Yang takes a different approach to her work at a junior college. Even though more than one of her colleagues has mentioned that teaching is not that essential to her path to promotion — an older mentor even said that teaching is “conscience-driven work” — Yang makes her own way: “Compared with taking students to competitions, Yang is more willing to enjoy the teaching process.”
FULL TRANSLATION: Fleeing from big tech companies, they flock to junior colleges to be teachers
ChinAI Links (Four to Forward)
Must-read: AI as Normal Technology
By Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor, this is a pathbreaking work that I already know I will be revisiting time and time again to mine its insights. Here’s the main theme:
The statement “AI is normal technology” is three things: a description of current AI, a prediction about the foreseeable future of AI, and a prescription about how we should treat it. We view AI as a tool that we can and should remain in control of, and we argue that this goal does not require drastic policy interventions or technical breakthroughs. We do not think that viewing AI as a humanlike intelligence is currently accurate or useful for understanding its societal impacts, nor is it likely to be in our vision of the future.
Should-read: Equity and access to higher education in China
Some more background context on admissions to junior colleges in China:
Currently, the cut-off scores for vocational/junior colleges are very low. For instance, in 2010, the cut-off score for math & science was 270 (out of 750), and the cut-off scores for humanities & social science was 330 (out of 750) (Hunan, 2010). Interestingly, the cut-off scores for admission to these colleges continue to get lower. In 2015, both tracks had cut-off scores of just 200 (out of 750) (Hunan, 2015). Essentially, anyone who takes the entrance examination will gain acceptance into these colleges, but the degrees from them will not bring any tangible benefits for graduates.
This is from a 2017 International Journal of Educational Development article, which analyzed lessons from Hunan province for university admissions policy.
Should-apply: AI Innovation & Security Policy Workshop
Co-hosted by the Horizon Institute for Public Service and the Foundation for American Innovation, this workshop is specifically designed for professionals considering career transitions into AI policy.
Should-read: International Student Visas Revoked
For Inside Higher Ed, Ashley Mowreader and Anika Seth are continuously updating a dataset on the more than 1,000 international students who have had their F-1 or J-1 student status revoked as part of Trump 2.0’s arbitrary policies.
Thank you for reading and engaging.
These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.
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All characters in this article are pseudonyms.
"Fudaoyuan at Chinese universities are similar to academic advisors or counselors but have a broader range of responsibilities, including political and ideological education, moral education, academic advising, career guidance, psychological counseling, and supporting student welfare. Fudaoyuan in Chinese universities have a unique dual role, serving as both teachers and administrators."
Source: https://www.hznu.edu.cn/upload/resources/file/2025/02/14/7869944.pdf