When I sat down for my interview with Paul Xu `26, a kid he teaches at the Grinnell College Preschool Laboratory ran over to beg him to race down the Central Park playground slides. Of course, he said yes, and he almost won. From preschoolers to his fellow students, Xu has spent his time at Grinnell fostering belonging and community.
In addition to working at the preschool, Xu has been involved in Volleyball Club, Table Tennis Club, the International Pre-Orientation Program (IPOP) and the International Student Organization (ISO) throughout the past four years.
A gender, women’s and sexuality studies (GWSS) and psychology double major, Xu said he was first drawn to Grinnell’s open curriculum, as he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study at first.
“I talk about open curriculum, but I was thinking about doing GWSS and psych before Grinnell, and honestly, nothing changed,” he said. While he explored many classes across disciplines, he found himself returning to his original interests.
Coming from his hometown of Hangzhou, China — a city of 12 million people — to rural Iowa was a bit of a shock at first, he said.
“I knew people talking about cornfields, whatever. And I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ And then we’re driving from Des Moines to Grinnell. It was like, it was nothing. There was nothing there. I was like, ‘Wow, that is crazy.’ I didn’t expect that,” he said. “I just never knew places like this existed.”
Xu said that at first, he mostly hung out with other Chinese international students, but didn’t want to be constrained by a single friend group.
“Some people will have their like, best friends and just hang out constantly, it’s the same group of people with the same person, but I feel like that’s just not for me,” he said.
He found another community in Volleyball Club, which he started attending towards the end of his first semester, and has been an active member ever since.
“I’d never touched a volleyball before, really never. And then trying to serve a ball, I hit someone’s head, who was a club president, like co-president during the time, but he was really nice,” he said. “People were really supportive, and I feel like it was that really great transition for me.”
While volleyball was a new sport for Xu, he said he’s been playing table tennis since he was four years old. He’s been an instrumental part of Table Tennis Club, securing funding for equipment and traveling to tournaments.
Through it all, Xu has never forgotten what it felt like to be an international student in a completely new place, which was not easy. He’s worked as an IPOP mentor, bonding with first year students and helping them to find their own communities, and has helped to organize ISO events.
He said he is currently finishing up a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) in psychology with over 15 interviews asking Grinnell students who have lived in two or more countries about their sense of belonging at the College.
“My aim is to talk to Grinnell, either student involvement, student affairs or Anne Harris honestly, to talk about how, what are some ways Grinnell can improve to help people with a better sense of belonging, especially for people who are struggling,” he said.
He said working at the preschool has taught him a lot about how to approach life.
“I feel like I learned so much from the kids because they’re like, they don’t give a shit about a lot of things. They just say it. And I feel like I should do that too. Why would I care so much about so many different things?” he said.
“They don’t care that I’m just a kid who’s a bit older than them and who’s from not even the same continent, because I’m just there spending time with them,” he added.
When studying abroad in Barcelona, he researched mental health among minority immigrant groups in the city. Xu said he experienced a lot of personal growth from living in a big city on his own for the first time. Xu built relationships with new people he met by asking them to write advice to themselves or to the world in a small notebook.
“I wanted something physical and tangible that proves that we’ve built that connection,” he said.
He’s kept the notebook, which is filled with dozens of pages of heartfelt advice in many languages from people he’s crossed paths with, from his time at Grinnell, and he plans to fill the blank pages with many more.
“Especially for first years, I think you really should branch out, like you should not be restricted by how you look, like where you are from, what languages you speak,” he said. “I mean, they’re all really good points to connect with other people, but those points won’t change.”
