Why failing the gaokao was the best thing that ever happened to me

Editor’s Note: CNN’s Shen Lu took the gaokao – China’s fearsome college entrance exam – in 2009. Here she reflects on the test, her failure and how it changed her life.

This week, millions of Chinese high school students will take the two-day college entrance exam, or gaokao.

When I took that grueling test in 2009, I had been told since I was a small child that it would be the most important task I ever completed.

For generations of Chinese – and this still holds true for thousands living in rural China today – a college education was their one ticket to success and upward mobility. Failure meant no degree, poor job prospects and a life full of regret.

So I studied hard, got into key junior and high schools, and hoped to get into a good university in Beijing. To study what, I didn’t know.

Fear of failure

Studying for gaokao was exhausting both mentally and physically. A typical high school senior’s day ran from 7 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Most of my classmates stayed in school for an extra self-study session that didn’t end until 9 p.m. I was one of the few who chose to study at home at night, mainly to escape the tension hovering in the air.

Teachers would tell us to focus on nothing but our studies. Parents would do anything and everything to ensure an optimum learning environment for their children.

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Even my mother and father, far less stressed out than most Chinese parents, would cook me an extra meal every night when I was preparing for the gaokao, even though I didn’t really need it.

At home, I would usually sit at my desk after dinner, trying to make sense of the mumbo-jumbo, while sneaking peeks at a magazine or book hidden beneath my work, always wary of a sudden parental inspection. This of course only stretched my already extended days even longer.

Torn up by the guilt of not studying hard enough and fear of failure, I developed severe anxiety, having to rely on medication to sleep during my last year of high school.

When it came to the test itself, I failed spectacularly.

‘My life is doomed’

Shen Lu revisits her old high school classroom in 2011, two years after taking the gaokao.

The day the results were released, I thought I was prepared for bad news. But when it came, my brain went into shock. I thought my life was doomed. I was so ashamed I locked myself in my room all day until my worried parents broke through the door.

I had hoped to go to a university in Beijing to study languages, a hard ask for a kid from the provinces. Of course that didn’t happen.

My parents asked whether I would consider studying another year and sitting the test again. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I said no.

Instead, I attended a third tier university in my hometown on Hangzhou. I majored in editing and publishing. It wasn’t bad, but I was unhappy and unmotivated. During my two years there I never completely understood why I had to study so much extra nonsense, or why my fellow students were so obsessed with joining clubs and organizations to get “leadership experience” (something I later discovered wasn’t unique to Chinese universities).

Journey to the West

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So I dropped out, in what many of my fellow students probably thought was an insane decision, and transferred to the University of Iowa in the U.S. to study journalism.

Thinking back, the stress and heartache of the gaokao seems somewhat insignificant. My life was neither changed or ruined by my “failure.”

What truly shaped me were my experiences at Iowa, where I studied journalism, developed a passion for it and cherished every opportunity I got to practice.

I’m actually rather grateful I failed the gaokao. Had I gone to a prestigious Chinese university, I would never have experienced Western schooling – a system not without its own flaws – and I would certainly not have understood the true meaning of education.

Pressure in China's education system starts young. Although parents, teachers and lawmakers have questioned the wisdom of putting so much pressure on young children, there's little sign their study load has been reduced.

In Hong Kong, where formal pre-school education begins at the age of three, many prospective parents begin mapping out education plans before their children are born.

China's often tough approach to bringing up children was made world-famous by Amy Chua, the Chinese-American professor who expressed her expectations of top grades and musical excellence in her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother."

Students in China commonly have to take extra-curricular classes or hire tutors after school. The ultimate goal is to do well in annual National College Entrance Exams -- or gaokao -- the only way to get into college.

Almost 9.5 million high school students in China took the 2015 gaokao in early June. Failure potentially means no degree and poorer job prospects. In this picture, parents crowd a police car outside Maotanchang High School as students leave to sit the 2015 college entrance exam.

The stakes are so high some students have stooped to ingenious methods of cheating. A police officer displays a device used by students to cheat in previous years.

A Chinese student gets his belongings searched before he enters the room to take the tough college entrance exams or Gaokao, in east China's Anhui province on June 7, 2012.

A record high of 7.5 million students graduated from college this year. However, the job market doesn't look very promising. Nearly 8% of last year's college graduates remained unemployed within six months after graduation, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Yet the gaokao perhaps is not as important as it used to be, with more Chinese studying abroad. Some 460,000 Chinese studied abroad in 2014, according to China's Ministry of Education. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have seen a rapid growth of Chinese undergraduate population on university campuses in the last decade.

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I worked far harder at Iowa than when I was in high school. By that time, I had matured and knew what I wanted. I wanted to get the most out of my education and ensure every penny my parents paid for my tuition – twice as much as local American students – was well spent.

Today, I couldn’t answer any of the fearsome gaokao questions, but if I took anything away from that unpleasant, unsuccessful experience, I think it was a simple truth: no pain, no gain.