[National Scholarship Special Edition] Junyan He: Being an “Explorer-Style Learner” at Fudan | Learning with Passion

Release time：2026-03-01    

“University requires even more inner drive,

but I believe as long as you have a clear vision for your future,

the drive will naturally follow.”

This is the story of how Junyan He, a 2024 student majoring in Finance (fintech-oriented), got awarded the National Scholarship. It is not a tale of effortless success, but a real-life narrative of “how to be an explorer-style learner”.

复旦大学国际金融

01

It was the toughest course that taught him how to learn

Not long after his freshman year started, Junyan He proactively approached a professor, hoping to enroll in an advanced mathematics course. Initially he intended to learn the finance-related part only, only to find the course far more difficult than he had expected after he actually stepped into the classroom. “At my most desperate moment, I certainly thought about giving up, taking it easy, and withdrawing mid-term,” he recalls. In the end, however, he did not withdraw from the course. By consulting upper-year students, repeatedly seeking guidance from the professor during office hours, and teaching himself the prerequisite knowledge, he eventually mastered what he needed. This experience later became the starting point where his learning method began to take shape. When it came to statistics, a subject that many of his classmates found challenging, He developed a systematic strategy of his own. He started from the most fundamental principles, combining the “course textbook, lecture slides, and self-compiled documents”. When encountering difficult points, he supplemented his learning with high-quality online resources from Bilibili and YouTube. He then strengthened his understanding of key concepts through a moderate amount of practice problems, focusing on “how to genuinely apply statistical methods to real problems”.

At FISF, Junyan He found his sense of direction. His favorite course was Corporate Finance, which laid the foundation for his understanding of the modern financial world. And the toughest course for him was Statistics, but it was precisely this course that pushed him to do a great deal of self-study outside the classroom and truly taught him “how to learn”. This transformation—from “struggling to thoroughly understand” to “mastering the art of learning itself”—is perhaps more important than any specific knowledge itself.

02

Passing forward the warmth: from being helped to helping others

Junyan He participated in the 2025 admissions recruitment in the Guangzhou-Foshan area for a simple reason. When he himself was filling out his college application, Fudan student volunteers answered his questions patiently and helped him avoid many unnecessary detours. “I want to pass forward that warmth and help.”

As a native of Guangdong, he seized the opportunity to join the FISF voluntary admission team in Guangdong. He had in-depth conversations with more than 50 students and parents, helping them work out more personalized application strategies based on their needs and preferences. “Through close communications with the candidates and parents, I not only witnessed their hopes for the future, but also reaffirmed my original resolve to pursue studies at Fudan and FISF.” This experience gave him a more concrete understanding of what it means to “apply what is learned to society”. He believed that beyond academic studies, research, internships, and volunteer work are equally important—they serve as bridges connecting knowledge to the real world.

03

At FISF, the student-faculty relationship can be very close

Junyan He works as a research assistant to Xiayin Ma, Assistant Professor in Finance at FISF. On one occasion, he was tasked with collecting and sorting some data. Eager to get things done quickly, he failed to fully grasp the professor’s actual research requirements and simply extracted content from relevant websites. Upon learning the situation, Professor Ma promptly called him to check in on him and offer support. He patiently helped him re-think the entire process, reminding him to pay close attention to the authority of information sources and whether selected samples conformed to the academic orientation of the study.

“Conducting research is not just about ‘getting tasks done’. What matters more is a rigorous attitude and a clear sense of the problem.” He reflects. He started over with the data collection, and Professor Ma set aside some time each week to discuss his progress and challenges, offering ongoing guidance. Such faculty-student interactions are not rare at FISF. Many times, he emailed his course instructors after class to discuss questions or share his own alternative approaches, and generally they managed to give quick responses, offering clear feedback and pointing him toward promising directions for further study. “The learning atmosphere at FISF is great. Instead of competing blindly, everyone is working hard toward their own goals. There are several opportunities for us to talk with different professor about our study and explore the paths we might want to take in the future.”

04

Interests and hobbies “round him out” as a person

Amid his busy academic schedule, Junyan He takes the gym on Jiangwan Campus as his “recharging station”. “I like to work out early in the morning when there are fewer people, which helps sharpen my mind.” On his list of interests and hobbies, basketball, fitness and photography stand side by side on top, along with his favorite singer The Weekend, his favorite book The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham, and his idol Elon Musk. All these seemingly scattered pieces come together to form a multi-dimensional picture of Junyan He: a young man who goes to the gym to restore mental clarity yet turns to The Razor’s Edge in search of answers about the meaning of life; who admires Musk’s innovation and ambition yet with patience and sincerity, has accompanied more than 50 prospective candidates through one of the most significant transitions of their lives.

05

Next stop for the explorer

As for the future, Junyan He plans to carry on his path of “being an explorer-style learner”: continuing to master his coursework while engaging in more hands-on practice, the former for exploring the directions he truly enjoys and the latter for developing the skills that the industry demands. When asked what advice he would give to younger students, he says, “Don’t rush to judge yourself. Give more time to your efforts, and you will see a different version of yourself.” This line of words perfectly mirrors his own journey—steadily building a strong foundation in the classroom, bravely exploring beyond it, learning how to learn in the face of challenges, and passing forward the warmth he once received through real-world practice.

From “struggling to thoroughly understand” to “mastering the art of learning itself”, from a passive recipient of knowledge to an active explorer—Junyan He has proven in a single year that the true secret to academic excellence is never innate genius, but the determination to take one more step forward at every moment when giving up seems an easier option.