Building Success by Choosing Harder Rooms

Two weeks after arriving in New York from Fujian, China, Serena Zou could get through Flushing in Chinese. Outside of Flushing, she went quiet.

Flushing gave her familiarity. She could follow her parents through stores. She could order food. She could listen and understand enough to feel oriented.

Outside Flushing, every errand became a small test. A cashier’s question. A bus driver’s directions. A form she could not read fast enough.

One afternoon, in a place where she could not assume she would be understood, someone blocked the path. Her father stood beside her. Serena reached for the phrase she had practiced because it was the smallest thing that would move the moment forward.

“Excuse me.”

She said it once, just enough to clear the path, and kept walking.

The phrase was small. The decision behind it was not. She spoke before she felt ready, and she kept doing that, each time in a harder room.

She started ninth grade and spent four years in ESL classes. She transferred schools. She learned how to enter classrooms where she understood only part of what was happening and still raise her hand when it counted. Progress came in increments. Not sudden leaps, but repeated decisions to push slightly past where she had been before.

She chose accounting at LaGuardia Community College because the structure helped. Numbers were stable. Accuracy mattered more than fluency. It gave her room to build confidence while her English continued to improve.

When she transferred to Baruch College, she chose corporate communications, a major built around language, presentation, and interpersonal skill. It was a deliberate escalation. She wanted to practice speaking, persuading, and leading conversations in professional settings, not avoid them.

After graduation, she pushed herself again. She accepted a role inside a corporate legal department and became the only paralegal at a midsize company. The work was demanding and fast-moving. She had to track details, communicate clearly, and keep pace with colleagues who shared years of professional shorthand. She learned quickly. She also saw the ceiling. If she stayed, she would be very good at the work. She wanted more room than that.

That question sharpened during the pandemic.

In 2021, while working at the district attorney’s office and spending most days alone, Serena came across a virtual mentorship event hosted by The City Tutors. She registered without much expectation.

The format felt familiar. A panel. Breakout conversations. A closing round where participants shared takeaways. Serena listened closely. When it was her turn, she spoke.

She returned for the next event, and the one after that.

City Tutors worked for her because it mirrored how she learned best. You could listen first. But you were expected to participate. Each session raised the bar just enough. She heard professionals explain decisions she had only sensed. Careers that once felt abstract became concrete options.

When she began leaning toward accounting, she wanted to hear from someone who lived inside the field. Through City Tutors, she connected with Niren Saldanha, a partner at KPMG. They met for coffee. Serena arrived with questions and left with clarity about the work, the pace, and the long-term path. It helped her commit.

She enrolled in Baruch’s dual MBA–Accountancy program. One semester, she took six classes to stay on track. She continued attending City Tutors events, using them as checkpoints against the next level of the professional world.

In January 2024, City Tutors hosted an in-person event at PwC called What Is Consulting. Serena attended, listened to the panel, and rotated through speed networking. Until then, she had thought of public accounting narrowly. The event widened her view. Consulting became a concrete path, with people she could follow up with.

Before her internship began, she met with Allison Siegel, a mentor connected through City Tutors, for a coffee chat near PwC. Serena already knew she would be joining the firm. She wanted to know how to succeed once she arrived. Allison’s advice was direct and practical: advocate for yourself, stay engaged, show up. Serena carried it straight into the summer.

Over time, she attended other City Tutors events with Bloomberg, Nuveen, and Goldman Sachs. After each one, she wrote notes so the lessons would not fade. She noticed how often the same people appeared across different rooms and how preparation shaped opportunity.

Before her second year even began, Serena signed her full-time offer with PwC.

Serena came to City Tutors already in motion. She had a history of choosing harder rooms and staying in them until she learned how to move. City Tutors expanded the rooms she could enter, and it gave her access to people who helped make the next step clearer when the timing mattered.

That is how she kept growing.