I am always interested in knowing more about the difference between China and the US from different aspects, including culture, education, historical factors and so on.
The more I get involved in the education system in the US, the more I like it. Generally, Chinese students do have solid math (arithmetic) abilities at an early age, but it really does not help that much as they continue to study, since a lot of other factors affect the results of the Chinese education. I was always wanting to systematically analyze and compare Chinese education, but I knew it would take a huge amount of time which is too "expensive" for me. Now I just want to list several points that come to my mind now. Perhaps in the future, I may be able to finish an assay about education. 1. Education in primary school --> emphasize mathematical competition, chinese assay writing skills and English. Competition is mostly hand-writing test driven. Other hobbies: art, music, sports. But they don't help apply for middle school. Short for real science enlightenment. 2. Education in middle school --> transition from (only) mainly focusing on math to other topics: physics, chemistry, biology and so on 3. Education in college --> 4. General Chinese class style Education in the US: In class: Not cover everything in a book, but try best to let student digest all the materials that are covered. ---- HUGE DIFFERENCE! Need more deep thoughts. I need to stop here now. The conclusion is that I will try my best to let my children have access to better education resources. I would always be happy to see my children grow up as scientists. ------ Why am I thinking about this??? I even haven't married yet! I feel depressed every time when I find that there are so many things that could relate to my research and I am interested in all of them, but now I know so little about them and learning one by one is such a long journey.
Life has a limit, while knowledge is unlimited. Depressed. But also motivated... I feel really glad that as I interact more with David, I become more open and dare to tell my real feeling to him.
We had a long conversation today. The aim was to improve my presentation for a poster competition and the prelim. During the conversation, I asked a question about whether it is necessary to emphasize potential application when we present our research. I don't remember his original sentence but the general point is that potential application is not the only way to motivate people. He set Lulu's molecular robot as an example. And his oscillator is also really interesting, at least to me. --> It's all about how you sell your work. It certainly cleared many things in my mind. I remember half a year ago. I posted something here: "When an apple dropped onto Newton's head and he decided to explore it, did Newton ask himself why he needed to know the reason why the apple dropped? Can we do science just because of curiosity and fun?" I was confused at that time. Because according to my experience interacting with people, I felt that they were only interested in research that could be applied. But I did not think it was a good idea to judge based on whether the work could be directly applied -- since you might never know what would happen, what would be changed 50 years later. I wanted to set Newton as an example to question those people who only cared about application. (It was all due to that I was not so sure about how to judge a work.) When I decided to stay in this field, I was always afraid of people asking me what direct application my work could bring. I was never confident on this question, since I myself did not believe my work is "useful", then how could I make other people buy it? I did not like this application question, and it somehow affected me a lot. Afraid of people asking me this question, I started to look for answers from other people's work with the idea that I might find a way to defend myself. But then I got completely lost. Not every paper mentioned application. -- Could I say that their works were not important, not meaningful? No, I could not... I struggled a lot on it until today. I felt so happy that David always mentions mathematicians. Because that's the answer, the analog I wanted to hear. (Mathematicians pursue the beauty of math and they do not care about practical application.) I was pleasant that I completely agreed with David and I just did not find people think in this way before. So I felt relief. Yes, relief. If you do not know how to sell your work, then the only selling point you can think about is application. --> My conclusion. Learn how to sell, learn how to present, learn how to be a good researcher. ------------------------------------------------------------- If you are really interested in your work, you would try your best to make it perfect. You would "spend more than 100% of effort to get things done to 100% level". Now I totally understand why Hao Yan thinks it is important. See how people in Caltech do research. See Lulu's beautiful science work. See how David prepare for presentations. See how I put effort to build my own personal website. --> It's all because of true love. When you love it, you would think of your work as art, then you would pursue the perfectionism in your heart. And that's the motivation. I love this field and I love the people in this field. Things become more and more clear when I get more confidence on myself. (Please be confident!)
I have 3 expectations for my PhD. Let's see if those can come true: 1. I want to publish at least one paper on a high-profile journal. (Here high-profile journal refers to Science, Nature, etc.) 2. I want to publish at least one paper which combines experiment with (model) simulation. (It means that the work should have both mathematica model as the foundation and real experimental results.) 3. I want to publish at least one paper about pure theory. Now I haven't got a feeling about how easy/difficult these can be. I also don't know if it's good to try both theory and experiment (compared with only focusing on either theory or experiment). But having some clear goals should be better than nothing. Let's work hard. 得不到的,永远都是最好的。我心中的Caltech,我的执念,从未因为时间而褪色。
得到的,却是否懂得如何珍惜。因为我的老板,让我在奥斯汀找到了科研的归属感。只是我却始终没能做到最好,至少我自己并不满意,并不是结果,而是过程。 是否有过太多迷茫,太多思考。 为什么我却是觉得博士这几年转瞬便即逝了。那么多人想着早毕业,我却畏惧着终了。这是真正象牙塔的几年,我从高中开始渴望象牙塔,到了大学发现并不是那样,而博士,在一个我崇拜了那么久的老板组内,是真真的象牙塔。傻不拉叽的拿不起放不下。 博雅呀,PhD就这几年,这人生中唯一的几年,请你且行且珍惜。 请你自信起来,勇敢起来,同时,请像你本科一样自律起来吧。 你是一个有梦的人,尽管那个“梦”是什么,你现在都觉得模糊不清,可是人说厚积薄发,你总会找到一个你自己的path独当一面。 今天呢和老板聊了聊,有几点感想。
1.说起来觉得自己幸运的是,自己感觉自己和这个领域好些开创者都有了很多接触(到UT来之后相比以前一个人在国内,获得的信息量、视野地拓宽都是飞速增长的)。逐渐地感觉对这个领域的那种“神话/神圣”感在消失了(虽然对Caltech的神圣感从未动摇过)。说起来这个领域是一个非常engineer的领域,又非常新非常交叉不算在任何一个传统领域里面。我自己有种大家都是在走一步看一步的感觉(还是各个领域的研究都是这样的?不知道)。做结构的已经在转型了,做circuit的又会怎么样呢?有谁会在一个方向做一辈子呢?以后发展怎样,who knows? 2.作为一个做实验出身的人,在接触理论的时候我是真的欣喜的。我总觉得我老板是个宝藏,而我还没有找到一个合适的方式好好“挖掘”这块宝藏。其实今天老板在跟我讲他对某个问题的“思考”的时候(说思考指的是纯理论的证明),我突然有种这个领域的人是在“自娱自乐”的感觉。我这样说并不是贬义的,而是欣赏的:自己创造一个体系,自己去从理论上证明它,建立模型理解它,通过实验验证它。在做纯理论这方面,我会觉得是需要有勇气的(也有可能是我还没有入门的原因),因为不知道是不是走到了一个trivial的地方。做实验是最直接的,因为它的结果立竿见影。这是我现在一个非常直观非常naive的一个粗略的感受。(或者说,这就是真正原创性研究的必经之路?Then, what is 真正原创性究?)我有时候会想,(可能还是我现在资历太浅)他们这些做纯理论的,难道不会担心自己的工作没有人关心吗(这个领域还是很小众的)?像Dave Z的工作,是原创的,所带来的broader impact是显而易见的,所以easy-selling。而老板他们呢?还是在写文章的时候,要去知道该怎么sell自己的工作(这也是我在博士期间需要锻炼的地方)?-->老板写的grant,每一点都是生物/应用相关系的,不然咋申得到钱。 3.老板还是很民主的,很nice。 除了我自己本身对这个方向的research的兴趣之外,我希望今后任何相关的所见所闻都不要破坏了我对doing research的神圣感。这种神圣感由science生,由academy生,由Caltech生,由我心中的理想主义情怀而生。请不要破坏它。 I had a long conversation with David today.
He asked me what attracts me to stay in this field. I said that systems built by molecules are elegant and beautiful. Then he said what if people asked or challenged whether these research could be useful. I replied not every research should be directly applied. Some research does not have immediate application, but other people may be inspired and find that later. David agreed and talked about other examples. One year ago when I was interviewed with Dave Zhang, I remember he also asked me this question. I didn't give him a good answer because I myself was not quite sure. Dave set himself as an example and said that he stays in this field because he could do both theory and experiment. Later I had an argument with Fan about his doubts in this field. While defending myself, my thoughts became clear. "对一个领域的展望永远都不是扯淡或者忽悠,因为科学就是这样发展的。我们看到了科学在一些领域成为了实用的技术根基,于是我们记住了那些科学根基。可是在那个科学发展的时候,也一定存在其他发展的科学,有的最后实用起来了,有的没有,但这就是科学,不能根据最后用不用得起来来衡量它的价值,因为你永远都不知道你做的东西用不用得起来。学医是很实用的,做一名医生减轻病人的痛苦。但是这个世界上有太多现在科技没有办法解决的疑难杂症,而对于这些问题的解决也一样离不开科研工作者在最前沿的地方的基础研发。这些研发,又有多少能真正用于临床医学呢?太多的尖端科学都只是给了人们一个promise,一个前景,能不能让这个前景成为现实,还是需要一代又一代相信这个promise的科学家的不断努力和奋斗,还有运气。" It's great to work with people who share the same research philosophy. So... I start to know how "PhD student" really means by trying really hard to get help on how to use the high-level fluorometer in the lab. Getting stuck in something and being brave enough to bug other busy people plenty of times will be common in my PhD years...
Again, Fan is much luckier than me. His group has a really strong background on what he is doing. As for me, what I am doing is completely different from almost all the students in Andy's lab. Well, it will be hard at the beginning, while everything will be fine, when you open up a way. Just keep at it! Recall what Paul said last year... "You will have to learn how to educated yourself (which is one of the most important things that a scientist can learn), to read lots of papers, to go to conferences, to reach out to scientists at other universities to get the things that you need to go forward." I am deeply moved by this song. I believe that everyone has a dream, a dream that you have fought for but were unable to achieve before. While no matter how hard it is, you are still fighting towards it. Then the dream becomes your belief, the light in the dark time, which drives you to learn, to explore, to step into the fear of unknown, to pick you up from where you fell... My dream. I was so close to my dream, while I failed. I cried and I was confused, or even I doubted myself. But now, what I am doing is to push me again to go towards it. I don't know whether there will be a happy ending eventually. While as long as I have tried and am enjoying the process, the result will not matter too much.
I gradually feel that I am on the right track of doing science.
I do love to talk with David and contact with Erik or Lulu or their postdocs/graduate students. What is beautiful science? Beautiful, is an objective word. How I understand beautiful science is the science that can stimulate people for deep understanding the world or the system you build/create, that may not be directly related to application, that is challenging, attractive and fun. I love beautiful science. I feel that I gradually get rid of the eager for quick success and instant benefits that I brought from China. I feel that I gradually know how to find the peace in my heart and be focused on what I really like. I feel that real interests can lead people to continue to learn new things. I feel that I am young and full of energy and want to devote myself to pure beautiful science. It will be hard. But without the difficulty, how can people really get the extreme happiness when they finally succeed? I feel that I am on the right track because now I realize how important health is, which I didn't pay attention to before. Doing science is just like a life-long marathon. Publishing a lot of junk papers without really contributing to a field is meaningless. What we need is the persistence for working at a hard problem which may take much longer time than publishing a junk work. I need to be healthy so that I can keep running. I want to change my lifestyle and never stay up too late. I will keep running every morning and increase the working efficiency. I am on the way. When an apple dropped onto Newton's head and he decided to explore it, did Newton ask himself why he needed to know the reason why the apple dropped?
Can we do science just because of curiosity and fun? I just really really really want to attend the DNA 21 conference!!!!
But I am still doing rotation, even haven't joined an official lab. (T.T) I hate rotations!!!! Without data, Andy will not allow his students to come. Sad... Robert said that all the members in Lulu's group went to the workshop in Jan this year. (T.T) If Fan can go this year, I should definitely go with him. He will take care of me. (T.T) Talked with David Soloveichik this afternoon about the 3rd rotation.
Feeling excited about working (back) on DNA staff. Realize that my real research interests are still related to DNA (not related to its biological function). Not biology / computational biology. Not application. Stop struggling in biology and the biology program/department. I am a chemist, and I like to work with computer scientist. Not until now can I say that I don't feel regret about choosing here. -------- only a short note -------- -------- look forward to finishing the 2nd rotation :P -------- 最珍贵的事,还是在进入这个领域两年之后依然还能保持如此的热情。 You chose UT-Austin because Andy said that your research interest may shift to Bioinformatics and you may be able to be co-advised by Andy and William Press who is a really famous scientist in CS field.
But, what if, after all the rotations, you find that it is DNA Nanotechnology which STILL attracts you most. Will you regret your choice? If you got Rice's offer in March, would you accept it directly without waiting for Duke? Too hard. Life is full of choices. How can we get rid of hesitance when we are required to make a decision? How can we get rid of regret if we find that another choice is much better? Work hard. Try your best to get what you want even if it is not the best place and make all your choices right and regretless. 加油! Fan is now in the US. We chat with each other every day through Skype. He tells me a lot about Hao Yan's lab there.
Here I want to list part of the emails I got last year and I hope I can get courage every time I see them. From Seung Woo Shin. Feb 4th, 2013. "DNA nanotechnology is an interdisciplinary subject that combines many different areas of research such as bioengineering, chemistry, computer science, control theory, and many more. However, it is not expected in general that you necessarily have a strong background in all of those subjects (which would be very difficult if you're not Erik). In fact, many researchers in the field are initially expert at only one or two of those areas and only later develop other skills as they collaborate and communicate with other researchers with different skill sets. The goal of DNA computing is very different from that of traditional computer science, and thus knowledge in programming languages like C++ won't necessarily be a huge plus. Rather, what is required of a researcher in DNA computing is the ability to think abstractly about concepts in computation such as algorithm, correctness, complexity, etc. (And often even that is not necessary.) If by any chance you were introduced to the field by my thesis, I'm afraid that it may give a very inaccurate impression about the field, because I approached the field in a purely CS way as that was the only thing that I knew how to do when I started in Erik's lab. Since you say you are in chemistry, I presume that you are interested in experimental aspect of the field also. Thus I would suggest that you read a few other recent experimental papers from the group and understand what they are trying to achieve. You will realize that the problems that people are currently studying do not require heavy background in computer science." From Xi Chen. Nov 1st, 2013. "I think we can conclude our first round of Q&A regarding motivation and philosophy of research. You did a great job! You defended yourself exceptionally well. My true purpose was to see whether you truly love science, or simply love the publications. I asked this because graduate school in science is only for those who truly love science, and I'm convinced you are one of them." From Xi Chen. Nov 8th, 2013. "I don't believe in any numbers (IF, H-Index, etc). I form my own judgement based on his/her papers and talks." From David Zhang. Nov 15th, 2013. "It was great to talk to you. I think it's perfectly reasonable at your stage in life to not know exactly what drives you and what your ideal career would be-- I certainly didn't. It's a good time to starting thinking though, and at some point (around when you get your Ph.D.) you will need to make a choice." From Erik Winfree. Jan 9th, 2014. "I think the Bioengineering admissions committee is meeting this week to make their initial decisions. I have heard that your application has been examined and made it to the short list being considered more carefully, but as you know Caltech is very competitive so I can't make any prediction at this time as to who will be selected in the final round. Best of luck to you, though. Regardless of the outcome, it's an achievement to have made it this far through the process." From Lulu Qian. Jan 9th, 2014. "I looked over your application, and I am impressed, mostly because of your personal statement and Dr. Xia's letter. I’ve let the admissions committee know that I’d like to interview you. Let’s hope for the good news." From Hao Yan. Jan 29th, 2014. "Good and valid questions. Sure, the field is inspired by mother nature's beauty of complex structures and networks, but we are also aiming to develop enabling technology that can be useful. Several emerging applications has started to show promises. For example, I have learned (not published yet) that people have been able to use DNA origami nano scaffolds to template proteins and use Cryo-EM to solve protein structures to close to 3 Angstrom resolutions. This is exciting as DNA templating will one day be used widely by scientists to solve protein structures, a dream come true after 30 years of DNA nanotechnology research. Another exciting application we are pursuing is to use DNA origami chips for single cell analysis of immunoreceptor diversity without single cell sorting (work in progress). This could, like PCR, revolutionize the field of immunology and cell stem cell research. DNA computing is different from the old days, people are spinning out companies using strand displacement techniques for in vitro and in vivo diagnosis. I personally see lots of exciting utility of DNA nanotechnology in biology and medicine. These examples are only a few representative ones. The key thing is that DNA nanotechnology and DNA computing, different from nano particle or carbon nanotube research, is intellectually inspiring due to the nature of the research which is bio-inspired and information driven. Of course, many research does not need to have immediate applications and it is totally driven by curiosity. For example, why do we need to spend so much time to send robots to Mars, why do we care about Mars as we will never be able to live there. The principles we learned from one field and research can potentially not only lead to future development of other technology but also impact people's thinking." From Erik Winfree. Jan 29th, 2014. "My fundamental belief is that it is seldom a waste to expand the frontier of human knowledge and to seek deep beauty and deep understanding. I think much of the greatness we see in human history was achieved by seekers of beauty and understanding. I have no claim to greatness, but I am driven by a similar urge. I have little interest in applications. They are, in my opinion, a side effect of knowing the universe better. The symptom, not the cause. There is much written on this topic. You would do well to read it. One example -- which comes to mind because I was originally trained as a mathematician -- is William Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology". The same concepts and values can, I think, be applied to all areas of science. That said, DNA nanotechnology is beginning to have applications. Look at the work of Andy Ellington at UT Austin, Peng Yin and William Shih at Harvard, Dave Zhang at Rice. I can't say when or where these embryonic technologies will have commercial value, but it does appear that a lot of things are growing." From Paul Rothemund. Feb 16th, 2014. "I actually tried very hard to schedule with you, especially since Lulu specifically asked me to. But the administrators did not connect me with you through email, I should have just done that first. Tomorrow, the 16th of February is fine. Would it be possible to meet at Moore Laboratories (where you met with Erik) at 12:00 (noon)? Since you do not have a key I will be outside. If there is some difficulty you can call me at 626-390-0438. We could, if you desire, get lunch. If noon tomorrow is not good, then please suggest an alternative time on the 16th, my schedule is fairly flexible." From Erik Winfree. Feb 25th, 2014. "It is a hard choice every year, because we always invite a very talented group of students. It was a privilege to meet you, and I am confident you will have a successful start to your research career elsewhere. Also, you are right that often students who aren't accepted for graduate school later come back to Caltech as postdocs or even faculty members. Myself, I was rejected when I applied to do my undergraduate at Caltech." From Lulu Qian. Feb 25th, 2014. "I think it was a good decision to invite you. I saw your potential in becoming a good researcher in our field. All of us did. But we also agreed that Caltech may not be the best place for you. I know that you are willing to learn math and computer science, but it is obvious that your strength is in chemistry and your interests relate to biological applications. Working with me would probably not allow you to use your full strength and satisfy all your interests. I personally think that you would be a good match with Andy Ellington or Dave Zhang. I hope your visits to their labs went well." From Hieu Bui. "Duke is a premier research institute. The research environment is the best one that I have ever experienced yet. I'm majoring in Computer Science and I get to work in wet labs. Prof. Reif has his own wet lab plus all the shared facilities at Duke. That means all the high-tech equipment (e.g., TEM, AFM, cleanroom, laser setups, UV-Vis, fluorometer, etc.) that are necessary to carry out an experiment can be used by graduate students. In the Reif's lab, everyone gets to interact with the professor on the regular basis via group meeting and one-on-one meeting. I'm so fortunate to be mentored and advised by Prof. Reif. He is well-known in the DNA nanotechnology field for his innovative approaches and creativities. I believe his insight is incredibly vital to future research directions. Prof. Reif research is highly interdisciplinary so I do get to interact with other professors from Duke Pratt School of Engineering, Department of Physics, Department of Chemistry, etc. All I can think of now is that I've made the right decision to go to Duke and I'm so grateful for what I'm researching right now under the guidance of Prof. Reif." "Students are free and encouraged to come up with their own creative ideas. Prof. Reif would provide guidance and point to a right direction. It's a feedback loop process. The ultimate goal is that upon your graduation, you will master and be an expert in your research area. In general, Duke Computer Science professors do not impose or assign projects to students. It's all about student initiative. " "I'm glad that you have set your future goal to be faculty. All I have to say is that students graduated from Prof. Reif went on to do postdoc at great places (i.e. Peng Yin at Caltech, Sung-ha Park at Caltech, Nikhil at Harvard) and now faculty at great places (i.e. Peng Yin at Harvard, Sung-ha Park at Sungkyunkwan University). Other went to industry like Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. (which I know you are not too keen about). Hao Yan was his postdoc and now a professor at ASU. These examples indicate that a faculty position is not uncommon from Prof. Reif's students. Again, I would like to congrats you to make to the Duke CS admitted list. Every year the admission process is getting tougher and tougher and only a very small selective group gets to be chosen to study at Duke. Please take your time to make your decision and I hope to see you in the upcoming Fall 2014." "C++ is not the requirement to be a computer scientist. In general, as long as you would be able to implement a function using any programming languages should be a good starting point. Learning Python is also a good starting point. The qualification exams are required however you could take qualification courses in the replacement of the qualification exams. In addition, you can take or audit undergraduate computer science courses for additional background plus if you think you learn better in the traditional way (i.e. classroom and whiteboard). Although your background is in chemistry, you have demonstrated your competence level at learning something new and being good at it via your chemistry degree. I don't think you would have to worry too much about courses/qualification exams given that you are a smart and hardworking individual. Plus our group and Prof. Reif have done these computer science materials in the past, so we could be there to assist you. " It has been about two weeks since I got back to China. I really appreciate about what the trip to the US showed me. Although finally I am not admitted by Caltech, I find it valuable that I got to know and think how much the other competitors are better than me. Andy Ellington did give me great pressure when I talked to him, while I still feel thankful for the talk. I do remember most of the conversations between those great professors Niles Pierce, Erik Winfree, Lulu Qian, Paul Rothemund and Andrew Ellington, which inspire me to think thoroughly about my own research interests and future development.
The application results I have got till now: Shortly after I returned to China, I got UT-Austin's offer and an email from Andy. As for Rice, all the other invited students get their own offers but I am on the waiting list because I am only interested in David Zhang while it seems that he wants me to be his "back up" which is on the contrary to our previous talk. I am not happy about it of course. I totally understand that a professor wants to recruit the best students, while from my perspective, you should not have told me that you are certain you can influence the application result, which indicates you would recruit me. And you should not have helped me revise my personal statement, which made me totally misunderstood. I have only applied for 5 universities just because I felt that Dave and I contacted very well. All I want to tell myself is that I should not have been so overconfident. There is an unexpected news from Duke that I got a chance to interview by skype with a professor who was really nice and told me if I decide to switch to computer science, I need to face up with a lot of challenges because in Duke, students are required to pass the computer science related courses by the end of second year, while I do not have any computer science background, which means I need to take some extra courses before I go to the US. After the skype interview, I thought a lot and attended some computer science courses with some freshmen or sophomores. It reminds me of what I was like when I was on the second semester in HUST. At that time, I asked Yang Tong and Zhen Xu for the list of curriculum in University of Science and Technology of China and Peking University, because I desired for exploring the pure science and wanted to improve the fundamental courses background. Referring to the books used in Peking University, I bought Linear Algebra and Method of Mathematical Physics. However, perhaps I was kind of confused or did not arrange my time well at that time, I did not work hard on these books. When I stepped into the second year of my university life, I put all my efforts to the course learning, GRE preparation and extra research. As for the third year, I was busy doing experiments and finally lived in the lab. I almost forget what my motivation was three years ago and it seems that students in Prof. Fan Xia's lab do not need to have any background knowledge when they join the lab, which gave me an illusion that I would not need it either. Actually, I was wrong. Why am I rejected by Caltech? I did not understand it at first, while now I think I have figured it out. Besides that those competitors are comprehensively better than me, I have an important weak point that my fundamental knowledge is too poor. Those great scientists in Caltech like Erik and Niles, did not major in biology when they was undergrads. Paul majored in biology while he also got another degree from computer science. And in Caltech, it is well-known that undergraduates need to be trained really hard especially on math and physics. As for DNA nanotechnology, researchers need to have interdisciplinary training if they want to expand the frontier of this field. (Of course, it is difficult and only suit for a small amount of people.) So I am kind of regret my chemistry major background. (If I were not at HUST, it might be much better. The education of fundamental knowledge at Chemistry Department in HUST sucks.) When I was at algorithm class, I felt that it has been a long time since I got training of thinking ability, which made me excited and also is a challenge for me. I do not know how it will be in the future, but I think it is necessary for me to learn and welcome those interdisciplinary courses now. And I hope the application goes well in Duke and if it does, I wish I could be brave enough to choose Duke and start my computer science PhD life there. I also hope that I will never forget how much I desire to be admitted in Caltech when I apply for graduate study. If I can settle down in DNA Computing this field, Caltech will definitely be my destination for postdoc. Good luck! It was glad to meet Edward Chang on the party where we 2014 Fall students gathered together the day before yesterday. Although it was Fan rather than me who did most of the talk, I still felt happy to join. Actually it is extremely tough for me to find some undergraduates, except for Fan, to share academic talks. Perhaps the reasons are as follows:
First, difference in profession makes one feel worlds apart. It is not easy for us to really understand other fields' works. Second, a lot of students, even some of those applying for studying abroad, do not have strong research backgrounds, which obstacles academic communications. Third, most of the students I met who are interested in doing research are boys. And it is much easier to start a face-to-face talk bewteen boys when they are not familiar at beginning. I think Edward Chang will definitely not start a talk with me first. Me either... Thus it seems that academic talks are boys' talks. :( WHY ARE YOU YOUSELF SO SHY? Okay, there is no need being upset about your gender and your character. Accumulation is one of the most important factors towards success. Enrich yourself and be outstanding, finally you will find that you have already been in a big academic group. I am rather excied today since I got Dave's email after I asked him about my application. And to my surprise, Lulu Qian also mailed me this afternoon. (@.@) How lucky I am!
So I did the calligraphic work full of pride and enthusiasm - just like the emotion of the poet - and every Chinese character is filled with my power. At the Christmas day in 2013, I got to know that Xi would come to Wuhan during the Chinese Spring Festival. How exciting it is to have a chance to contact him! I have plenty of questions to ask him about the application, the life in the United States, the professors, the philosophy of doing research, life plan and so on. I am sure we will talk a lot and be indeed friends!
Other professors did not respond to my emails -- they are just greeting emails. I have moved to live in the dormitory since last week and started to read Cytobiology. Besides, I spend about two hours improving my Chinese handwriting everyday. After one day and a half off at home, I returned to the lab and sent in the first edition of my rewritten manuscript. Professor Xia is kinda satisfied with it and just asked me to do some minor revisions which are quite easy to handle with. It is obvious to see the improvement. When I wrote the manuscript at the first time, I felt kinda puzzled and questioned my words or sentences all the time. While at the second time, I found it much clearer about how to write and what the structure of a manuscript shoud be. With more time left, I can reference much more papers before I get started.
It seems that I can be relaxed before the ordered DNA arrive. ^.^ Research Proposal and Python Learning. ^.^ I went home last saturday and then visited grandma on my mother's side on sunday. As time goes by, I have grown up while my families have got old. My paternal grandpa passed by when I was busy studying in middle school in Grade 10. Five years after that, paternal grandma went away as well. I still remember the last thing grandma told me when she was still strong was asking me to remind dad not to always argue with mom because it was bad for mom's health. How sad it is to recall the past! Fortunately, my grandparents on my mother's side are still healthy although they are not as strong as before. In the first three years of university, I seldom went home and spent the most of time in school, got busy studying or researching. While after finishing the application and research work, I need to go back home several times before I go abroad. "父母之爱子,则为之计深远。" I feel tired of staying at this lab because I am kind of puzzled about my role here. I am not a graduate student and now I cannot buy any reagent myself. While I am not like other undergraduate students since I have been staying here for about 1.5 years and have more research experiences.
When I want to regard myself as a graduate student, others will emphasize that I am just an undergraduate. When I want to regard myself as an undergraduate, some people will ask me to do some complex and unexpected work because of my ability. What is my role? I am in sore need of answer and respect! I wonder whether it goes the same outside of China. I work as hard as -- or even harder -- than other graduates, but I am not treated equally. Some other undergraduates also do some projects and get their own results, but I have never seen their reports on group meeting. Why? Because they are undergraduates? Actually, when they start their projects, they get professor Xia's permissions, which mean that their ideas are pretty good and have potential to be published on some good journals. Do we come here just for graduation thesis like some people said to me before? We, underguadate students in HUST, can get up extremely early or stay up late to balance research and courses. We, undergraduate students in HUST, pursue our dreams toward research, the holy land of science to go to the lab without benthamism. We have enthusiasm, curiosity and endeavor just because we are undergraduate -- young and brave. Those qualities do not belong to some graduates who just seek for graduation! I really want to say something to professor Xia while I dare not to do that as well. As for me, I have already finished my work and am going to graduate in several months. To some extent, it is none of my business. But I do feel unhappy when I find myself, other undergraduates or Hakeem are treated unequally. Hakeem is also a PhD student. The only thing that makes him different is his nationality -- Pakistan. I feel really sorry about that. I am also going to study abroad as a chinese student. What if I am treated as Hakeem? The room where most undergraduates sit is short of air conditioner or water foundation. And they are asked to come to lab almost everyday bearing coldness. Some other undergraduates and I sit with graduates together in a warm room with water foundation and washroom. I can do nothing except for sympathizing. "以学生为本" is too far away to be seen. There are indeed some nice labmates I need to admit. Ruixue, a PhD student, helps me a lot. I appreciate her wholeheartedly not only due to her assistance on my work, but also her guide about my application and future plan without looking down upon me, an undergraduage. I went to the Exit and Entry Administration Department today and applied for a passport. The staff in charge of taking photos did a great job about my photo which made me a little bit excited. Haha~
Continue to learn Matlab. Get started to learn the courses from Coursera and I plan to install a virtual system to run Python on my laptop. Professor Xia asked me to send in a rewritten manuscript before Dec. 16th and the manuscript should be submitted before Jan. 18th next year. It may not be so difficult for me. Finishing the applications for universities, I feel kinda released and can finally really enjoy what I am doing. I can spend sometime reading papers, thinking about some research proposals, rewriting the manuscript, learning programming and practicing handwriting. Does it sound wierd? Or rather lucky?
The professor whom I want to work with helped me revise my personal statement! Haha! Dave makes me kinda happy. Thank you for your advice!~ After I sent Happy Thanksgiving Day email to Xi Chen, I finally got his reply. He was sorry for non-responsiveness and planned to skype me next week. Xi Chen -- my first friend in the US. (^.^) This feeling makes me extremely excited -- I have already been a member in the big group of DNA, talked with those famous professors and made friends as well. I am going to finish the application of Rice, the last one. I haven't decided that whether I should go back to my dormitory or continue to stay at the lab. The reasons for staying at the lab: 1. It is warm. 2. I can work late at night without worrying about electricity or network. 3. Stay up late and get up early. (Usually stay up till at least 1:30 am, while get up at about 7 am) The reasons for staying at the dormitory: 1. I can do something that I always want to do but did not have time, such as improving my handwriting of both chinese and English, read some books like cytobiology. -- But if the dormitory is too cold, I cannot keep studying efficiently. And if I arrange my time properly, of course I can stay at the lab studying. 2. Sleep well. -- If I go back to dormitory, it is very likely that I will get to sleep at 00:30 am and get up at 8 am when it is cold outside. (*.*) Comparing with the reasons from each side, I think it is rather easy to make a decision... Never stop learning! Finished the application of UT-Austin, UW and Duke.
To my surprise, I received Chunhai Fan's email at night before I or professor Xia contacted him. I do not know how professor Chunhai Fan gets my email address. And when I saw his reply "ok,"blah blah (Chinese), I felt a little bit funny. :D (Perhaps I do kinda admire Chunhai Fan) I filled the recommenders' information in Caltech's application. (O.o) Hope everything goes well!! |
AuthorBoya Wang Archives
December 2015
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