Lunch with Professor Coppola

It is always a great pleasure to talk with someone who knows so much and can hold your attention so long, who widens your views and makes you think. Happily and luckily, we get the chance to have lunch with professor Coppola today. Of course, he is the "someone" I just mentioned.

We went to his office first. Wa! It is unbelievable and really amazing. So many collections about China. There is even a piece from Han dynasty. I was supprised by the fact he knows a lot things about China that I never heard before! Definitely, I spent a much longer time in my own country than him as well as a lot of foreigners who travle to China, however, they always have been to more places than us and know a lot things we don't know. Why will something like that happen? Sometime, it is a shame for us. There is a saying that there are always no beauties nearby (I paraphrase). It means that we cannot see the wonders and beauties from the things we see everyday or we will not take it a big deal if we can get it easily. Having been in Beijing for two years, I haven't been to Yuanmingyuan Park, haven't seen the red leaves on Xiangshan; as a student of Peking University, I haven't been to the old building Honglou; actually, I haven't even gone through to every corner of our school let alone the old building remains. We think, we have a lot of time and chances to visit, to appreciate and to enjoy; we think, they are just commen things not worth our attention. Then, the day comes when we have to leave the campus, the day manifests itself when others know our country better than we do. I am a Pkuer, I don't want to leave Peking University without knowing its history, without feeling its breath, wituhout touching every corner of its stature. Similarily, I am Chinese, I want to know my own ancestors, feel the history, appreciate the beauties. The fact that you see it everyday or you can see it at any time you want doesn't makes "the place nearby" worthless, contrarily, that makes it more precious because you never know when you gonna lose it. So cherish it, now!

During the lunch, we asked professor about the application for graduate school and he also explain how the undergraduate education carried out in UM. It is really impressive and mind-blowing.
Firstly, about the attitude of top students. Back in my school, we students take the grades so serious and think it is very important for applications. Then bang! He told us they treat the students from our schools more or less the same. We can vary in our grades in our own school, but put us in China, we are all the top. And at that high level, it is hard to tell who is the best, the first one does not certainly promise a more outstanding future than the second or even the tenth. We always care so much about who is the number one, and the meaningless competition for it wastes a lot of our time and takes us to a wrong direction.
Secondly, about the rank of universities in the US. I know many students make their decision of application according to the rank, however, we never care or even try to know how the rank is made. Today, we were told that the rank is based on people's opinion. Even the opinions are from the chairmans of the department all over the country, it is not a valuable or even a reliable one. Moreover, what the rank gives is an average, it doesn't tell us the information about the individual professors. It is lucky for us to know the truth about the rank now, however, we are lost again. I think it not for no reason that people take the rank into count, it is because we have so little information about the school, about the professors, sometimes, the rank is the only thing we can look at when we make our decisions. The situation is pretty hard for us, we are searching our future in nowhere. So an experience like us is very useful and important! It opens our eyes and builds the connections between the professors in individule and us which makes the information transfering possible and much easier. Just today, I got some information about the professors here for one of my friends who will apply for graduate school this year.

Then we talked about the undergraduate education. Independence and creative are the most impresive characters I feel about the students I met here. And I think the latter one cannot happen without the first one being guaranteed. To be creative, you have to think independently first. The education system here leave the space for students' creativity and even at the cost of less knowledge.
One thing is that the "job" here is done by project, in laboratory as well in classes. The best part of project is that it is a whole thing, with beginning and end, theoretically. So one has to understand the whole thing to make to the end and each project is a unit relatively independent and systematically. Take me for example. I never do anything about simulation before, let alone molecular dynamics. Then I came here, with fear of ignorance. I am so frustrated the first few days, sitting in front of my compter, trying to figure out what is going on. And my mentor gave me a project, not for research, but for tutorial. With the system I start my journey. I first make clear what I am going to do and what I need to know to get the thing I want. Then I search, I ask, I read, I try. Step by step, now I've got a movie of molecure! It is true that you don't need to know everything, just know what you need and where you can find it. A project leads you through the learning. UM students conquered projects after profects and reach their graduation. They maybe don't know as much as we do, but they can do much more than us with the independence and confidence as "naive courage".
Another difference is the content of the project. They just give the students something no one knows the results or even the future. There is no right or wrong, only reasonable or unreasonable. They can try as what they think. Independence comes from freedom. That is the one thing our system lack, freedom. For us, everyone does the same experimet and even the same as the students many years before us. We know what is a good result and everyone pursues it. We have to follow the traditional ways to do it because that is the way leads us to a good result and a good grade. Creative? That costs too much risk whick is beyond our bearing and out of our consideration. So, gradually we are used to follow and lose the creativity as well as independence.
And we value grades very much. To some extend, I think the education system in China is not only for educationg students but also for selecting. A lot of things are related to the grades: the fellowship, the honor and even the way people treat you. Most important is the future, far as the job and the life standard, near as the offer we get after graduation, which I know now is not so important as we thought. So our classes are designed in a way that they can evaluate us. That is the reason!

A lot thougts are still flying out of my mind but I cannot continue anymore. Save for next time ...