A Portrait of Northwestern University PhD Student, Wenxuan Shi

When 1999-born Wenxuan Shi, a native of Zhenjiang in Jiangsu Province, stood in the corridors of Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen at the end of his undergraduate years, he candidly admitted, “I’m not entirely sure how I ended up on this path to a PhD in the United States.”

During his time at SUSTech, he joined a system security research lab as early as his sophomore year, working under a professor who had once taught at Wayne State University in the U.S. “He kept telling us that if you want to do research, America is the place to be,” Wenxuan recalls. This sentiment was shared by many top-performing students there: applying to a U.S. PhD program seemed an inevitable and prestigious move.

In hindsight, Wenxuan acknowledges that he hadn’t given serious thought to what would come after obtaining a PhD. “I was just following the crowd,” he says, “and I thought, ‘Hey, a fully funded PhD in America—that’s a pretty good deal.’”

With this mindset, he embarked on his PhD journey in Computer Science at Northwestern University in Illinois in 2022 under an F-1 visa. From the outside, he appeared confident, yet he was also stepping into the unknown.

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Upon entering graduate school in the U.S., Wenxuan quickly realized that PhD life was neither as glamorous nor straightforward as it seemed on paper. “In system security, you spend a ton of time reading dense papers and debugging massive amounts of code,” he explains.

But what stung most was the lack of positive feedback:

For nearly two years, Wenxuan barely left the Chicago area, too consumed by stress and a sense of responsibility. Despite sleepless nights and daylong frustration, he saw little to show for his relentless efforts. Eventually, the anxiety didn’t disappear but morphed into a sort of weary acceptance.

“There’s a point where you’re just going through the motions,” he says. “I wasn’t really quitting, but the passion I had initially was gone.” Some might call this a form of “lying flat,” but Wenxuan still felt compelled to keep going: “I’d come all this way—I couldn’t just give up.”

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Sometimes, life offers a surprising opportunity that reignites enthusiasm. For Wenxuan, that opportunity was the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge (AIxCC), a major cybersecurity competition led by DARPA, aimed at automating the discovery and patching of software vulnerabilities.

Wenxuan’s team, “42-b3yond-6ug,” performed admirably during the 2024 semifinals, advancing to the next round. He focused on fuzzing—feeding large amounts of data to probe software flaws. Despite the grueling schedule, he found relief in the project’s distinct clarity:

In an unexpected twist, the intense workload eased the weight of uncertainty. “I’d rather face heavy demands than aimlessly wander without direction,” he says. Paradoxically, the competition’s pressure served as a form of self-liberation.

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Yet a significant issue looms: Wenxuan, now in his third year, has not published a single paper. In many computer science PhD programs, having no publications at this stage can raise eyebrows.

“I know it will look bad if I graduate without any publications,” he admits. “I can’t just say, ‘I spent all my time on a competition.’” Still, Wenxuan leans toward an industry career, focusing on practical engineering rather than producing multiple top-tier papers.

“At least one publication” is his current academic bottom line—just enough to prove he isn’t an academic failure. He describes it as a tightrope: he doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as having “no research productivity,” but he also senses that robust engineering skills will matter more for his job prospects.

In his plan, once AIxCC concludes in 2025, he aims to spin insights from the competition into a paper. He hopes that, by the midpoint of his fourth year, he can balance the rush to publish with his growing emphasis on industry internships and job interviews.

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Asked whether he would leave the PhD if a dream job appeared before completing final degree requirements, Wenxuan answers with a half-joking tone:

This stance reflects the complexity of many F-1 students’ experiences: they arrived in the U.S. with lofty visions of “frontier research,” only to confront practical hurdles like visa issues, financial constraints, and a competitive job market. In the face of so many external pressures, Wenxuan’s emphasis on a decent industry position makes sense.

Still, he doesn’t want to disregard the importance of scholarship. “Part of me desires some purely academic contribution,” he says. “But realistically, companies care about functional prototypes and relevant skill sets. I guess my main task is to integrate them as best I can.”

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Amid a challenging PhD schedule and AIxCC competition, Wenxuan manages to find small pockets of normalcy—like starting a fitness regimen after a friend teased him about his weight gain in the U.S.

He has also dabbled in video editing, purely out of curiosity. For now, it remains a personal pastime without serious plans to merge it with academic pursuits. “System security is quite technical,” he explains. “People outside our field might not find it terribly interesting. If I ever do something creative with it, that’s a bonus, but it’s not my main focus.”

Interestingly, these lighthearted diversions might, in the long run, prove crucial. After two years of being nearly paralyzed by anxiety, Wenxuan has learned to pace himself, weaving small joys into his routine while tackling big challenges. There’s a sense that these ventures—fitness, travel, exploring new skills—are fueling his personal evolution.

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Wenxuan’s story is, in many ways, emblematic of an entire cohort of Chinese PhD students in America: initially driven by ambition or perceived inevitability, later overwhelmed by unrelenting demands, and eventually forging their own path somewhere between research and pragmatic engineering goals.

“When I look back, the PhD isn’t something sacred or impossible; it’s complicated, sure, but it’s also just one route,” Wenxuan reflects. “As long as I don’t lose myself in the process—if I can find meaning in research or in building real solutions—then it’s worthwhile.”

Perhaps that’s the silver lining in all the uncertainty: the blend of dread and hope, ambition and doubt, that prompts these young researchers to reexamine their motivations and chart a balance on their own terms. In Wenxuan’s case, AIxCC offered him both a revival of purpose and a test of endurance, a high-pressure stage that taught him how to function effectively under the weight of expectations.

He still battles anxiety and remains unsure about some decisions, but he’s come to realize that creating steady momentum matters more than having all the answers right away. And so, Wenxuan continues inching forward—on a path illuminated by dim but persistent light—seeking to transform his multi-year sojourn abroad into something that resonates with both personal growth and an evolving global tech landscape.