Seven floors up a bleak office building in Shenzhen, China, Andrew Gu (12) traded in a junior summer of playing volleyball and socializing with friends for an engineering internship—a 10-hour-a-day, two-month journey that eventually transformed his outlook on life.

“My story in America sort of took a pause,” Andrew said. “I didn’t know what my motivations were anymore. That’s when I started to really reflect on ‘Why am I here?’ I wake up at 6 o’clock every single day. I do a two-hour commute to get to work. Why am I doing that? I could easily sleep at home. I could come back to America. I could be having fun. I’m intentionally choosing to sacrifice small things for something greater, but what was that greater thing?”

During those grueling days of completed assignments but unfulfilled experiences, Andrew separated himself from the endless work and discovered a valuable lesson about himself.

“My personality was always rapid fire. I was like an action person. I wanted to get things done,” he said. “Then, I started thinking, ‘Huh, sometimes it’s better to just slow down.’ I’m trying to blur the finer details that are more painful sometimes. In the grand scheme, I want to make sure that I put in enough effort. I want to make sure that I’m staying consistent in the long run. But, I’m more aware of the overall trend rather than the finer details.”

So, with the experience now having come and gone, what started as a simple internship, in fact, developed into an introspective excursion about Andrew’s life and where it might take him.

“For me, maturation is about reflecting on yourself to learn your strengths and weaknesses and to find the direction in which you can best utilize those strengths and manage those weaknesses,” he said. “Finding that path is what growing up is all about. The flexibility to change paths is greatest when you’re young—that is the gift of youth.”

After taking a look into the past and adjusting in the present, Andrew took the opportunity to give his future self advice before a set of new experiences begin.

“You’re always trying to go fast and go hard,” he said. “But, what’s more important is ‘What’s your direction?’ If you orient yourself in the wrong direction, going fast and going hard is meaningless. Sometimes, you’ve got to find your direction—you have to figure out which is the right path you want to take.”