Rooted in STEM

Introduction and Interview by Ivan Ma

The “Model Minority” myth has portrayed the Asian American community in a dishonest light. One part of the stereotype is the idea that we are confined to STEM careers That this is the only path for us Unfortunately, this is compounded by expectations from our families, who believe that these types of careers will come with the “American Dream” of success and happiness.

Deviating from these career paths is often met with mixed feelings from both the public and our own Asian community. The opinions range from mild disappointment to complete disownment. It has gotten to a point where many Asian Americans veer away from careers in their non-STEM passions, due to these societal and cultural pressures.

But pursuing a non-STEM career does not mean that you’re destined for failure. You should not deserve to be perceived as “lesser of an Asian” or as someone that your parents are be ashamed of. In this interview, we have had the opportunity to speak to Nicholas Tu, a member of our Asian American community, about his experiences with this subject matter.

Describe the motivations behind your decision to drop college. Was there one that really stood out to you, or was it a combination of several reasons?

When I first enrolled at OU, my plan was to undergo the standard pre-med track: four-year undergraduate education into a graduate medical program, with the intention of eventually becoming an orthopedic surgeon. My parents have both worked as surgeons (my father currently works as a plastic surgeon while my mother has transitioned into wound care) and the majority of my relatives also work in the healthcare field, and with my academic success in high school, it was easy for me to believe that aiming for medical school was the right decision for me.

It wasn’t until I was a couple of years into my undergraduate education that I began to question whether or not this life plan was right for me. Naturally, as a pre-med student, I had been taking a courseload with a higher proportion of science classes. What I realized in those two years of taking the courses and studying early for the MCAT was that despite my ability to understand and earn good grades in the material, I was completely disinterested in the sciences of chemistry and biology.

With some introspection, I came to the conclusion that I had set out on the path to medical school without any true desire to do so. That isn’t to say that anyone pressured me to become a doctor. I believe that I simply hadn’t ever stopped to think about how I really wanted my life to look like, and the medical field seemed like the best option to fall back on, given my academic success and my family of doctors.

In the summer between my sophomore and junior years, I told my parents that I wanted to switch my undergraduate track from pre-med to business This decision was heavily influenced by one of my good friends named Tony, who I've known since middle school Tony has always had an entrepreneurial mind, immersing himself in knowledge about starting and running businesses and coming up with new ideas for new opportunities every day.

I'm the kind of person who really delves into topics that I find interesting, and spending time with Tony led me to start reading numerous articles on financial/business education sites such as Investopedia.com in my free time. I found myself spending hours per day and entire weekends watching videos and reading articles and books to absorb any bit of information I could.

In the second semester of my junior year, in an MIS class, I met a classmate named Johnny. Johnny didn’t have the greatest understanding of the coding language we were learning, but the code came to me easily. Over time, it became a normal practice for me to walk him through and help him understand the various class exercises assigned to us. It was during that class that Johnny first introduced me to the idea of trading on the stock market.

It started off with him opening his Robinhood portfolio and talking to me about his investments every day, showing me how much he had gained or lost at the time. As before, my interest was piqued from these talks, and I dove into reading how I could enter the stock market myself; perhaps I could make a bit of pocket change while finishing my business degree

It was around that time that the COVID19 pandemic hit the U.S., and OU transitioned to online education.

During the pandemic, I really leaned into learning about the stock market, and I actually was able to make a decent amount of money trading stocks intraday.

After several months of trading on the stock market, I did the math on my average performance and calculated that in theory, I could eventually begin to make a living off of trading; not only that, but I enjoyed the process. Nowadays, I’m able to make a living off of the money I make trading in the futures markets. I put a lot of time into watching the financial markets day-today, and I’m constantly reading about and testing new trading strategies. I’m also largely interested in real estate investing, and I would like to eventually be able to funnel the money that I make from trading into passive rental income.

Ultimately, I would attribute my decision to drop out of college as a combination of the influence from Tony and Johnny and my trait of wanting to learn everything about topics that are interesting to me. I believe that without Tony and Johnny to expose me to entrepreneurship and investing, I wouldn’t have even known that I’d be able to pursue a career in trading the markets. And I don't think I would have been nearly confident enough to dive right into trading if I hadn't developed my knowledge base as much as I have

How did your parents and family members initially react when you made the decision to drop college to pursue business? Do they still feel the same about the decision today?

When I decided that I wanted to drop out of college and pursue a path in futures trading and real estate, I told my parents my plan with all the details: what I wanted to do, how it worked, how much I had already been profiting on average, how much I projected myself to earn in the future, etc...

I told them that I'd understand if they didn’t want to support that path and that I would move out, find some entrylevel job, and support myself if necessary. However, I was fortunate enough to have accepting parents who allowed me to explore what I could do, for a gap year at the least. They were skeptical of my idea, but they told me that as long as I have a plan with some concrete details behind it, they would let me see what I could do.

My extended family is supportive of me now that I’m making good money from trading, but my mother always reminds me that she’s saving some money in case I want to go back to college and finish my degree.

How did your friends, particularly within the Asian community, react when you made the decision?

The majority of my friends were supportive of (and very intrigued about) my decision to drop out of college. I was always considered “the smart guy” of my friend group, so it was surprising to everyone that I wasn’t going to finish my bachelor’s.

After I explained my plan, everyone understood and wished me well. A few of my friends even offered to lend me capital to help me start off (since there is more potential for profit with more capital when you’re trading).

There were some people who felt that I had changed now that I was so invested in the business and financial world. They talked about me behind my back and ended up distancing themselves from me for several years. They’ve since reached out to me and explained that they were in a bad place in their personal lives at the time and feelings of envy had arisen, so it's all in the past for the most part.

Do you have any regrets about the decision? If so, what kind of regrets? Personal, academic, social, etc.

Right now, I don’t have any regrets about the decision itself. One mistake that I wanted to avoid was getting stuck working in a career I wasn’t passionate about for 40 years, and I believe I’ve escaped that fate successfully.

I’m making an amount of money that I’ll be able to support my future family with, and I’m excited for how I’ll be able to scale my career up in the future. Perhaps I regret that I didn’t start sooner.

I do regret that I didn’t make as many friends during college as I could have Currently, I spend the majority of my time at my desk at home, so there aren’t many opportunities for me to meet people.

I’m thankful for my significant other and for the friends that I’ve had from my primary education and that I’ve met online, but I think that it would be an additional positive experience for me to get to know and learn from other individuals in the various fields of business.