Sun Ling  Photo: Courtesy of Sun Ling

Sun (center) attended World Flying Federation organized by Asia Oceanic Ultimate and Guts Championships in Manila, Philippines in 2016. Photo: Courtesy of Sun Ling

Whoever thought it would be possible for a young woman from a small village in China who failed to get in a university would one day be working at the Google office in New York? But this is exactly what Sun Ling, a 29-year-old programmer from Loudi, Central China's Hunan Province, managed to achieve.

Setbacks

Sun came from a poor farming family. Her father used to be a carpenter but manufacturing put him out of a job and her mom was unable to find a job. This situation made it very difficult for her parents to put both her and her older brother through school.

After Sun's elder brother dropped out of school, her father pressured her to stop studying because he felt it was inappropriate for a girl to study at school when a boy could not. 

"I persuaded my parents to let me continue going to school by promising them that I would get into the county's No.1 high school," Sun told the Global Times. 

While she didn't get into the county's top school, she managed to get into a private high school. Years later, in 2009, although she managed to achieve the highest score, a 399, on that years' national college entrance examinations, or gaokao, her score did not reach the second-tier admission requirements for university.

The summer after the examinations, she traveled 14 hours by train to take a job at a battery factory in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province. 

Working on the night shift, she was responsible for inspecting the positive and negative connections in the batteries. 

However, the repetitive 12-hour work days soon took their toll on her and she quickly realized that this was not the life she wanted. 

"The idea at the time was very simple. Since I didn't like the factory's streamlined life, I knew that I needed to learn skills that could earn me the money to get out of there," Sun said.

Looking for a way out, Sun got a chance to know that a software training institution in Shenzhen holding a course in computer in 2010. Driven by curiosity, she resigned from the factory and signed up.

After the training course, she applied for more software courses at two training institutions, paying for her tuition by taking on three part-time jobs and with the help of a credit card. 

That year, her entire life pretty much consisted of working and studying. 

While it was tough, Sun felt it was more than worth the effort. 

"It felt very fulfilling since I was learning something every day. I felt that learning could change my life and give me more options," she said. 

Sun is not the only hard working person in Shenzhen. Every year, thousands of people, especially young people like Sun, head there to seek out a better life for themselves.

"I liked Shenzhen because it is this very young and energetic city, but it was too difficult to find a boyfriend in such a fast-paced city," Sun joked. 

Heading overseas

Completing her training in 2011, she found an IT job at a technology company in Shenzhen that was working with the government. Responsible for tracking the salaries of civil servants, she was pulling in 4,000 yuan ($580) a month.

The year 2015 was special for Sun since that was when she earned her bachelor degree by passing China's Self-Taught Higher Education Examinations. 

However, the young woman was not willing to stop there. Looking to move her career forward, she found a programming school located in the US and decided to give it a shot. She started to learn English and began saving money for the application fee. In 2017, she was accepted into the school. 

Walking out of the door of the US embassy with her newly obtained visa, she was reminded of a scene in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. 

"My mood at the moment was similar to that of [the main character] Chris. Words could not describe my feeling, but I was really excited," Sun said. 

During the nine-month study period, Sun completed one course a month, which mainly consisted studying programming theory in the mornings and putting these theories into practice in the afternoons. 

After finishing the program, Sun began to hunt for jobs. She set a three-month deadline for herself, since she knew that's as far as her finances would let her stay in the US. With no retreat in mind, Sun boldly walked forward. 

After two months and nearly 60 interviews, she was hired by EPAM Systems, a software engineering and IT consulting company, to move to New York City and work with Google to develop IP protection software. 

Dream come true

The evening of her first day working at Google's offices in New York, Sun looked out at the light up Manhattan skyline and could barely believe where she was. After more than a decade of exhausting days and nights, she had finally achieved a dream that was beyond anything she had previously imagined. 

"Perhaps if you were in my situation, it would not have been that difficult to do these things a step at a time," Sun joked.

She noted that her ability to seek out and find information helped get her where she is today. 

"It is easy for people to give up when they cannot find enough information. They need to think what they can do and what want to achieve, and then make a move without needing to think too much. Try to do something that makes you feel a little uncomfortable, because it can make you better," Sun said.

She said her experience was not a successful transformation because she was still a ordinary worker. She hoped one day she could be an official employee in Google and learn more things in big data analysis in the future.

"Life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get," Sun said.
Newspaper headline: Tale of triumph