Andrius Staisiunas is from Lithuania and currently an investment banker in New York, USA
“People think ‘oh I’m smart’, that’s not it. Even if you’re born with something, you have to develop it.”
Andrius Staisiunas
"I have to fight for myself for no one will fight for me."
That is the attitude underlying the breathtaking achievements of 2005 Bates College graduate, Andrius Staisiunas. Only in his early 20s, this Lithuanian national has already ‘dreamt big’, maximized on his educational opportunities and created paths where none existed.
The elder of two sons, Andrius grew up and spent most of his life in Panevezys, Lithuania. More of a gangster than a student, he can’t recall ever having a serious approach to his academic career while in Lithuania. However, with the turn of the millennium there was a change in his life; Andrius felt the need to go somewhere new and do something different. Thinking about future prospects, he thought the best way out might be to enroll in some tertiary institution. To begin his search, he visited Yahoo.com and randomly entered ‘Colleges and Universities: B’. This is how he found out about Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.
“To get into an American University you have to be very good student from very early days, be very rich or be very good sportsman” says Andius. Knowing this, he decided to exploit his skill as a middle distance runner. He contacted the track and field coach at Bates and applied Early Decision. Andrius was accepted in 2001, a year he labels as the best in his life and one he knows will never happen again. “I am from ghetto, my country is poor. I had zero money. Bates is like the biggest miracle that ever happened to me.” A non-native speaker of English, the difficulty of mastering a new language prevented Andrius from doing well on the Verbal section of the SAT exam. “I probably had the lowest SAT score in my class. I deserved to be here the least but I wanted it so badly.”
One Four-Year Shot
Once through the gates of Bates, Andrius realized the incredible opportunity that was before him.” It was such a big jump; everything was made for you. Always, everything was clean, so well managed. There were no queues, there were washing machines. You don’t have to take care of anything in your life.” Immediately, Andrius saw the four years before him as a once in a lifetime opportunity. “This was it; I had four years to be something or nothing.” Suddenly, being a relatively bad student and hailing from a background worse than most became motivation for the foreigner. “I had to catch and beat everyone.”
Method to the Madness
A change in attitude did it for Andrius. As a first-year student, athletics provided a way for him to ease into his new environment. On the field as a mid distance runner, he was turning heads and he soon began to do the same with his course work. “I worked so hard. I studied all the time, there was a seat in the library that everyone knew was mine. When I came I was reading like one page per hour but I still read my psychology book five times.” The time invested was well spent; Andrius could feel himself improving and this served to urge him on more. The lowest grade that Andrius received in year one was an A- and he was named a Dana Scholar, the highest honour bestowed upon twenty outstanding first-year Batesies.
In the summer of 2002 Andrius went to Middlebury College’s Language School and studied Italian. He loved the experience but by then he had fallen in love with another area of academics- economics. He thinks that then it was a fascination with money and power, but now his motivation is different. He continued applying himself to his studies and track and field and in 2003 made a Bates indoor track and field record 1000m run of 2:28:12, a record he stills holds. In his third year of college, the former Academic All –American exploited the ‘study abroad programme’ and enrolled at the London School of Economics, LSE. Away from Bates, he remained single-minded about building capital for himself and spent the whole year studying so much he could feel himself being stressed and stretched. “I was in the centre of London, just me and my books. I had so much desire to study and I studied that whole year”
Reaping the Rewards
When he returned to Bates for his final year, Andrius says school was no longer challenging. His hard work had laid such a great foundation that he felt like a graduate student. He spent the last year balancing his thesis work and the social life he had sacrificed in the earlier years.
A true master of his major, Andrius wrote a ten page honors thesis that was examined and praised highly by renowned economist of Harvard University, Richard Zeckhauser, among others. “People think ‘oh I’m smart’, that’s not it. Even if you’re born with something, you have to develop it.”
When Andrius graduated at the end of May he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi Societies. He graduated Summa Cum Laude with an overall GPA of 3.99, the highest in the graduating class. He also swept all three prizes offered by the Economics department, a first ever in Bates history. Of course, he also wrote the Economics department’s shortest and most outstanding thesis. This summer, he will take up a very lucrative offer as an investment banker on Wall Street. As excited as he is about all that is before him he can’t bare to leave Bates. “This is my home. I will never have this chance again to start from having and being nothing. The more you put in, the harder it is say goodbye. At graduation some people were like ‘yeah it was fun but whatever’ but for me I am in such deep depression. I got this chance and it changed me so much.”
What are his future plans? To work for a while before going on to graduate school. “I fell in love with Economics. It is not that hard anymore. From my thesis I see that I have great potential to do research. There is a part that wants money and power and status and part that wants the intellectual and more modest life.” Andrius enjoys walking around the college campus at night and says he might become a professor just so he can continue to do that. “I would teach at Bates, or Middlebury, I love Middlebury,” he says smirking. “I enjoy everything and I don’t know what I will do. I have options, and the greatest thing in life is to have options.
One of the greatest things in life really is to have options( ask those who have none). You've fought for yourself so enjoy it now!Thanks for sharing , truly inspirational.