His supporters at Front Range Community College Boulder Campus say 26-year-old Yonglong Zhao possesses the skills to change the world. Zhao admits he has come a long way from his days of cocooning himself in his parents’ home in Shanghai, China, after barely finishing high school.
Zhao said he was fighting crippling self-doubt and depression because he could not get admitted into China’s largest universities. “I was a slacker, I was really depressed,” Zhao said “I wasted three years, stayed at home and did nothing.”
Zhao’s journey from his couch to being a top student at Front Range Community College, or FRCC, puts him on center stage today. He is a main speaker at graduation ceremonies for students from the FRCC Boulder Campus at Longmont High Schools’ Everly-Montgomery Field.
Zhao is leaving FRCCwith an Associates of Science Degree with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
Zhao finished at the top of every science and math course he took at FRCC and now is likely headed to the University of Michigan to study computer science, he said. Zhao wants to be an entrepreneur and develop artificial intelligence technology to predict the weather, the stock market and when and where the latest pandemic will emerge.
Nancy West, special assistant to the Dean of Student Affairs on the Boulder County campus, said, in an email, Zhao is “an amazing young man.”
“I have worked in higher education for many years, and every once in a while, a student comes along who you know is special and who has great potential to ‘change the world.’ Yonglong Zhao was one of those students,” West said.
West says she often tells Zhao that she can’t wait to see what he creates, invents, or develops as he matures in life. “He has the potential to do some amazing things,” she said.
West, who worked with Zhao almost daily after his second arrival at FRCC, is greatly responsible for his academic turnaround, Zhao said. She is his “American mom,” he said.
West’s entire team at FRCC helped Zhao regain his footing after jolting setbacks to his self-confidence. “Nancy completely changed my life,” Zhao said. “I was a young man with no hope. Now I have a lot of hope.”
After being blocked from attending top universities in China when he was 18, Zhao applied to the University of Colorado-Boulder after seeing the university’s high ranking in the U.S. News and World Report. CU, he said, “was my plan B.”
After being accepted in summer 2016, Zhao also enrolled in CU’s International English Center, offered to international students to bolster his English skills, West said.
Zhao said he struggled in his new environment at CU. “I was not prepared, I was not ready, so they kicked me out,” Zhao said.
Zhao was like many international students who had no real support system to back them up, West said. “They are not with their friends or families, so it is pretty isolating,” she said.
He was faced with attending classes at FRCC in Longmont or going home, Zhao said. He chose FRCC but his attitude toward the school was dismissive at best. “I thought this was a place with low status,” he said.
He was not attending classes, his student visa expired and in spring 2018 he returned to China and his parents’ house. “I was lying in bed and I finally realized it was time for a change,” he said. “I was not young enough to need my mommy and daddy to take care of me.”
Zhao contacted FRCC and asked for a second chance. He received an I-129 — a precursor to getting a new student visa — and returned to FRCC.
West and her team worked to prepare Zhao for his classes by bringing in tutors and teaching him how to read a syllabus and follow a class schedule.
West said Zhao also began walking 5-8 miles a day and writing lists of goals and accomplishments. He quickly blossomed outside of the classroom, helping other international students and leading food drives for local pantries.
The scaled-back size of FRCC helped Zhao, who was swallowed up by the size of CU, West said.
“We have smaller classes, where professors get to know students and help them if they need help,” West said. “It is a totally different experience than at a large university.”
Faculty and school officials noticed Zhao’s hard labors, awarding him this year’s most “resilient student” award, West said.
“He truly deserves it,” West said. “I cannot wait to see what he invents and creates down the road.”
