Outstanding doctoral candidate award of 2014
On 5th August 2015 (last Wednesday), I received from our ambassador the Chinese government award for outstanding doctoral candidate of 2014. This award eventually marks the end of my life being a student :relaxed:. Now I am trying to briefly write here my 20ish years’ memories and experience just in case that I will forget some of these someday.
First, the photo taken at the Chinese embassy Finland with our ambassador YU Qingtai (middle) and first secretary GAO Yuhang (left).
My journey started when I was 6 or 7 years old like any non-exceptional Chinese kid. I would assume exception kids would probably go to school earlier and therefore have less childhood memories. But I don’t think I remember anything in my 6 years old :laughing:. Anyway, I went to primary school in 1991 and was there for 5 years. I don’t have much to say about my primary school although I was a powerful kid among my peers :smile:. I have good grade as expected by my parents and excellent social skills which I don’t even have nowadays :worried:. The thing I want to mention here is that I have the most diverse schoolmate in primary school than any other schools or college. They are nowadays police officers, government officials, criminals, scientists, artists, bar owners, and even drug dealers.
I began my junior high school in 1996 when I went to the best school in my city. There I met some of my best friends of my life. Some of us are very good kids, and other are not. But this does not matter. We play and take care of each other. We are best friends. After four year, I graduated from junior high with an outstanding grade which I did not even care about. It’s funny that when my parent found out I was ranked something like top 10 in my city I did not even know why this is important.
Soon I started my journey to the senior high school and I really enjoyed those three years 2010-2013, the memories and experiences I will never forget. Honestly, I got a lot of extra benefits of having a high grade from my junior, e.g., I was made a student leader and taken very good care of by my teachers. Unfortunately, I grade kept going down and I was gradually turning from a good kid to a not-so-good kid. I was removed from one priority list of good kid and add to another priority list of the kids who need a lot of supervisions. Thanks to my great teachers and my parents, I managed to get back to the right track and make through the college entrance examination with a grade that sent me to the one of the best technical university in China. I missed my hometown so much with memories of my friends, my parents, and my pass.
University for me is just OK but not very exciting. Basically, I lived a routine life from dorm to class and back to dorm. This is probably because of the hard-working atmosphere :tired_face: created automatically by us computer science nerds. I graduate in 2007 with my BEng and a ranking position that directly sent me to the graduate school without any additional examination. This is very good for most college students who have to prepare themselves for the entrance exams and interviews. However, I suddenly realized that I should go out and see the world outside when I was still young and nothing to worry about. Then I went to University of Helsinki in 2008 and finished my MSc in 2010. I have to admit that life during my MSc could have been more excited if I would enjoy myself more. But unfortunately, my peers they are just crazy about knowlege which gave me no choice but being a aggressive competitor. I realized by that time I have a belief deep in my head of winning things. Oh by the way I was born in July and Leo is my sign. I always think sign and life are not scientifically independent since one can not prove the dependency of one on the other. But one cannot prove the independency either. So, now I just assume there is some causal relation between these two major thing and work it out in a positive manner.
To be continued …
With these, I want to thank my parents, my supervisors, my friends of being there to make my day everyday over the past many many years. I also want to thank myself personally for pursuing my dream so hard although I don’t remember at all what I have dreamed about when I weak up :laughing:. So keep pushing myself.
Hongyu Su 12 August 2015