Some students present may feel anxious because they have not yet figured out what to do in the future: what if they are not interested in scientific research and do not think about future development? When I was your age, that is, twenty years ago, I didn’t think about it, and I was very confused. It wasn’t until 1995 that after the postdoctoral was completed did he vaguely know what he was going to do before making up his mind.
I graduated from Tsinghua one year earlier. At that time, I was not interested in academics but in politics. But there is no way in politics, and I feel that I must go to business first. Therefore, at that time, a contract was signed with Tsinghua University Science and Technology Wholesale Corporation to conduct business on behalf of the company in Hong Kong to do public relations. As a result, the employment contract was torn up for some reason. After struggling for a night, I decided to go abroad.
Reading a blog for 5 years in Hopkins has been hard. There were 3 exams before and after a biology course. I took 52, 32, and 22 respectively, and only passed the first time. I asked the teacher to let me go. He finally gave me a B-, and I really appreciate him. I didn’t feel a little until the third grade of Ph.D., and in the fifth grade of Ph.D., I felt that I could “mix” work in academia. But after the doctoral defense on April 12, 1995, I still don’t know what I should do.
In November 1995, I made up my mind to go the academic way. Since then, all the main energy has been academic, and I told myself that this interest can definitely be cultivated. Now I am extremely interested in sleeping and eating, and working day and night.
Therefore, do not give yourself reasons, no matter what happens in family, personal life, hobbies, etc., you should go all out.
Knowing yourself
In the process of my studies, I have always been a very inferior person. For example, when I was in high school, my chemistry teacher explained the “Le Chatelier Principle.” Later, I couldn’t understand after reading the book repeatedly, and I felt like I had collapsed. I always feel that other students in the class are smarter than me, and I really feel inferior.
Looking around you, when others are about smarter than you, you will feel that they are smarter than you. Therefore, when you think that other people are smarter than you, he is not necessarily smarter than you. Don’t be too inferior.
At the same time, I also have a personality trait that is competitive. When I was in the third grade, the head teacher encouraged me to report for the 1500-meter race. At that time, I wrote an application for joining the group. The teacher said that the time for performance was coming and the organization was testing you. I signed for a 1,500-meter run. Registered four days before the Games. On the night of the registration, my thighs were cramped and my legs couldn’t move. The day of the game returned to normal. When the starting gun fired, I was 100 meters ahead of the other players, but fell to 300 meters by the penultimate. My pride was hit. But I was very competitive at that time, and I started running the next day. Later I went to college, and the coach chose me to join the school team to participate in the game on behalf of Tsinghua University. In many cases, your personality determines your future. I am inferior, but I am very good at it.
No matter what discipline you study, physics, engineering, biology, and liberal arts, I think the least important is IQ. I don’t believe that any successful scientist has not paid much. Lao Pu, the head of the biology department of Tsinghua University from 1984 to 86, has been a well-known tenured professor in the United States. He taught the students when they met in the United States: “In my academic career, my biggest trick is to work hard and work more than 60 hours a week. I know you can’t work as hard as me, but I ask you to work every week More than 50 hours, which means that if you work 8 hours a day, you have to work at least 6 days a week. ”
You don’t think that you go at 8 in the morning and do a little experimenting, just leave at 8 in the evening. He only counts the time you spend doing specific experiments and the time you actually go to the relevant literature.
Even your meal time and an hour of relaxation after consulting the literature should be removed. Working 50 hours a week is a very heavy workload. If you can do it, you meet my requirements, you can stay in the laboratory; if you can’t, leave the laboratory. No one will succeed without giving time.
Building critical thinking
My PhD supervisor was a full professor and head of the department at the age of 33. One day when we had a group meeting, he looked particularly excited and said, “Today I will show you one of my ideas, and I hope you will help me see if there are any questions.” He began to write formulas, full of blackboards Deduction. I raised my hand stupidly, and I wanted to say that there was a mistake in the first place. After I finished speaking, all my classmates said that I was wrong. Actually, I found out that the mentor blushed when I said my first sentence. The instructor said that today’s group meeting ends here. Everyone thinks I hit the teacher and no one cares about me.
At 1 pm, the mentor found me and asked me where the bachelor was studying. I said Tsinghua University. He said that I didn’t care which university you came from. What I cared about was that you had learned very well. Your teacher at that time must have been everyone.
This open questioning, using my learning to correct the academic mistakes of the head of the department and laboratory mentor, has given me unlimited confidence in my scientific research, and it still has a great impact on me.
