How to Fill Out 2022 Gaokao Volunteers
Choosing a university comes down to the relative scarcity of talent: high brand recognition makes it easier to land a good career path.
Choosing a major, on the other hand, is about riding the information gap in a crowded market. You’re targeting industries with high future earning potential.
Choosing a city is about leveraging local economic growth as everyone ramps up competition. The difference between landing in Shenzhen and buying an apartment that later soars to 100,000 yuan per square meter, versus staying in Hegang and buying a place that becomes worth only 50,000 yuan total, is enormous.
So what do you do now, when the job market is packed with post-70s, post-80s, post-90s, and post-00s generations, and there are roughly 10 million fresh graduates every year—making up nearly 400 million college-educated people in total?
Based on these trends, the safest route is attending a top university where you can ride out years of cutthroat competition. It’s not the best value for money, but it’s stable—just as wealthy families prioritize asset preservation before seeking growth.
Hard tech sectors—such as advanced manufacturing, chip upgrades, robotics, new energy, and new materials—still hold strong promise. Both hardware equipment upgrades and robotics replacing low-cost labor lean heavily toward programming skills, so keeping an eye on these fields makes sense. New materials and new energy, however, require fewer workers and are mostly research-oriented, making it hard to stand out unless you reach groundbreaking levels like those of Yuan Longping’s generation.
For guys who don’t mind hardship and want to make money, heading into related technical fields is a solid move.
For girls, pick a strong city—one where good universities cluster together, drawing in top talent and premium amenities. There are only so many options, so another strategy is to aim high in your future partner while you’re still in college; securing a great match during university is already a win. Meanwhile, prepare for government exams, teaching certifications, or careers like medicine—stable paths with decent pay that protect your family’s financial floor. Think of yourself as the safety net: the one who can keep the household running even if everyone else loses income. That’s enough to set you up for life.
For students without strong connections, consider second-tier cities and trending majors. Urbanization keeps pushing people from rural areas into smaller towns, then into bigger cities, then toward regional hubs and provincial capitals—so settling in a strong second-tier city is still a smart move.
And for those who don’t go to college, keep an eye on future trends and head straight into manufacturing roles—robotics engineers, assembly-line equipment operators, programmers, or maintenance technicians. The income potential is surprisingly solid.
(Just look at my middle school friends who dropped out but learned computer programming—some are already making 20,000 to 30,000 yuan a month in first-tier cities. Meanwhile, the kids who went through the same schooling as me are stuck earning around 5,000 yuan in typical graduate jobs.)
One last point: before the college entrance exam, you study to climb the rankings. After it, you learn how to turn all that hard work into real returns.