[The main point of this article is not an individual, but a viewpoint: graduate courses need to be opened to such an extent that they are good courses. So far, China's graduate courses in life sciences are too shallow]
Almost means that I didn't formally propose to dismiss me, but I felt that I was on the verge of failure at that time.
Chinese Students: Substitutes join the main team
In the first few years before going abroad in 1985, the most distressing thing was that the domestic media often published how easy it was for Chinese students to study in the United States, with top academic achievements and outstanding research. Because that's not true. For the vast majority of international students, they have encountered difficulties of one kind or another. Geniuses such as Yang Zhenning have been frustrated by the failure of experiments, not to mention others.
Of course, for different students, in different schools, as well as different professional projects, the feeling is different. But as long as they are really top schools and professional programs, and Americans think they have a future, then American students will be very strong. At that time, it was also easy to see: some schools had some professional projects, and the average number of Chinese students enrolled was less than one every year. In other words, these professional programs in these schools are not rare for Chinese students. From 1980 to 1990, it is estimated that for more than ten or twenty years, the Department of Biology of MIT, the two majors of biochemistry and neurobiology of the University of California, San Francisco, and the graduate program of Rockefeller University (this article makes MCR, an abbreviation that no one usually uses to describe a professional institution similar to these three schools) were all about the same.
Some middle and upper schools and secondary schools and majors soon become dependent on Chinese students because of the poor quality of their American students. The Chinese students who graduated from these schools and majors are not necessarily not good, and a few of them are outstanding. After the analysis, the confidence of American students may be guaranteed because they have no chance to be frightened by American students, and teachers may pay more attention to it.
In the MCR category, it is estimated that Chinese students are rarely valued (if any), and they need to stick to it. After seeing that American students are indeed excellent in both character and learning, gifted and hardworking, and are valued by teachers, they are not afraid of the environment to think that they seem to be substitutes, but take the attitude of being masters and persevere to respect themselves 。
Transcript: What if I fail?
Transcripts are of little use to the students at the end of education (doctoral graduate students), but almost useless to the graduate students in natural science. Unless they fail, almost no one reads them.
To get to a new school (for example, from the countryside to the city, or to study abroad), the general rule is that it is difficult in the first year, but easier later.
Many people do not necessarily understand my transcript of the first semester from primary school to Nanchang. What needs to be considered is that I had just returned to Nanchang from the countryside, and the first semester in Nanchang was an important issue. At that time, Wenbo's father, Mr. Jiang, specifically talked to my mother about the importance of this issue. Mr. Jiang was a teacher at Zhangshu Middle School ("Zhangzhong") and later in Yichun. He specially said that the schools in rural areas were much worse than those in Nanchang. Therefore, the first semester in Nanchang was uneventful and flat, which means that the countryside has not caused permanent damage, at least it has no special impact on the reading and classes of ordinary primary schools.
The transcript of graduate students in the United States began in the fall of 1985. Doctors of biology in the United States usually have 4-6 years, and their courses are concentrated in the first two years.
In the autumn of 1985, my first semester at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the difficulty was that I immediately realized that special efforts were needed.
My transcript of graduate students in the United States is a bit strange: I got A in my first semester of professional courses (neurobiology/neuroscience 201) in the United States, and I experienced the most difficult exam in my life (cell biology/biochemistry 245) in the second semester, which was also A, but there were problems in the second academic year for two consecutive semesters: an elective course that lasted for one year in a row did not dare to take the exam last semester, I (incomplete) did not complete, no class next semester, U (unsatisfied factory) dissatisfied (that is, failed).
UCSF has become one of the top biomedical departments in the world, and its biochemical department has played a vital role. By the 1980s, it was not only outstanding in research, but also very good in teaching. The Department of Biochemistry has good molecular biology, cell biology, genetics and developmental biology.
The neurobiology of UCSF was established in the late 1970s, mainly by getting seeds from Harvard, the world's first university (the relationship between genetic engineering and Harvard is the reverse, and UCSF is exported to Harvard).
It is quite difficult for me to take neuroscience courses in the first semester of UCSF.
It seems that there were more than ten students in the UCSF neurobiology program later in the year, but at that time there were only four students in our class (the son of a Stanford University professor, a Harvard undergraduate, a Princeton graduate, a Reed college graduate, and then me -- a Jiangxi Medical College undergraduate, and a Shanghai First Medical College master), I am not inferior to them on paper.
Their teaching methods and examination methods are also different from my experience in China. It is not too absurd to say that Grandma Liu entered the Grand View Garden.
There are foreign students joining the course of auditory neuroscience, so there are usually 8 to 10 students in class. Except me and a Taiwanese student, they are all American students.
American test scores are normally distributed. A Chinese student once told me to be careful in the exam that it is easy to put American students at the bottom.
I was very nervous. I was criticized by my teacher every year in China when I was young.
Before I went to the United States, my English was very good, but in the first semester, I could not understand the language completely, and I was unwilling to use a recorder.
I developed the habit of reading literature in Shanghai, which was beyond the literature reading of most domestic teachers at that time (when I was a graduate student in Shanghai, a foreign teacher set a question, and I happened to read the literature, and answered the question with something he didn't know, so he went to literature tutoring afterwards). At UCSF, not only do you read the required literature (usually one or two articles) in each class, but also read each article of the longer references listed by the teacher. At that time, I had to go to the library to find magazines one by one and copy them one by one, which was a bit of physical work.
The American exam is not the same way as the Chinese biology and medicine endorsement. The first semester of neuroscience has a brainstorming topic.
I like the learning content very much.
In the first semester, I was totally uncertain about my study. After I worked hard and got an A in my major, I was immediately distressed that Panasonic did not know how to spend Christmas New Year, so I had to take the train to beg for food at the home of senior students I met in Stanford when I was in Shanghai. In fact, they are not very good at cooking, but they are better than me alone (I invented such wonderful food as soy sauce fried bread, in order to solve the problem of not being used to American food and not being able to make Chinese food).
In the second semester, the required course was Cell Biology in the Department of Biochemistry (course number: Biochem 245). At that time, there was a strong lineup of teachers: Marc Kirchner, who was recognized to be smarter than the Nobel Prize winner (at that time, he made several research breakthroughs, and later became the director of the Department of Cell Biology of Harvard, and then the director of the Department of Biology of Harvard System) Several years later, Michael Bishop, the Nobel Prize winner (in 1976, it was found that normal cells had proto oncogenes), Henry Bourne, a G-protein expert, and Peter Walter, a German who had already worked for his mentor to win the prize, etc. The cell biology textbooks used all over the world were compiled by Bruce Albert, the director of the Department of Biochemistry of UCSF, and other editors (he later became the president of the National Academy of Sciences and the editor in chief of Science magazine, the one who invited Shi Yigong and I to publish an editorial in Science magazine in 2010, and he was a professor in Princeton before he came to UCSF). The quality of this course was very high. However, Kirschner not only speaks with a big tongue, but also gives profound lectures, which makes it even more strange when the exam questions are set.
The cell biology exam was taken home, which was the first time for me. However, when I handed out the exam questions on Monday, I was at a loss and couldn't understand all of them. Half a week later, I still didn't understand the questions, especially Kirschner's questions. My heart was trembling. I finally handed in the paper on Friday, and was not sure. I was very happy to get an A. But today, I don't know how much I got right about Kirschner's microtubule problem. On the contrary, most Chinese undergraduates believe that biology is easy to understand, and cell biology is more intuitive, which can not be mysterious. In fact, the reason is that the teachers are not good enough.
Anatomy 235 in the second semester is the neuroanatomy required by UCSF neurobiology. I hate anatomy, but I have taken it three times: Jiang Yi, Shang Yi and UCSF. The last two times I asked only for exams and no classes. The doctor asked me to take the exam, but I didn't score. UCSF asked me to take the exam, and I also recorded a score. It was A unexpectedly.
How did the car roll over in the second school year?
One reason is that my practical ability to do experiments is not strong (while most Chinese students wait until the time of doing experiments to turn over and liberate themselves). The next year, I set up a laboratory. The curriculum is relatively unimportant, and research is important. But it is easy to worry about what research to do and how to do it well. At that time, it was accepted that Americans should be happy in everything they do, and only do when they are happy. This kind of contradictory mentality, anxiety and difficulties are all solved in their own minds, which may easily lead to psychological disorders, at least when they can not easily control the psychological model.
Another reason is the common problem of meeting people of that age: associating with the opposite sex. I met my girlfriend in medical school. In the autumn of 1986, she went to Stanford University to study as a graduate student. It's a 45 minute drive from San Francisco to Stanford. I'm not proficient in driving. I didn't have a car at first. It would be nice to see you once a week. At that time, there was a serious imbalance in the sex ratio of foreign students. The Chinese male students at Stanford University set up an ingenious "Si Guang Committee" (Stanford Singles Committee). A group of male students had activities and might also inform each other. Besides these, there are also Taiwanese and American students. When I went to her department party to play volleyball, an American student heard about our relationship and hit the ball in my face. It was dangerous. Another Chinese girl encouraged my girlfriend to have an American boyfriend after she changed her Chinese boyfriend into the son of an American billionaire.
It can't be concluded, but it is speculated that the above two factors may cause hyperthyroidism (the cause of hyperthyroidism is unknown, but the book says that mental tension can contribute). However, I didn't know I was ill in the first few months of my illness. I just ate too much, had high temperature, and lost weight. I saw the American school doctor and found out that I was not ill.
My A in the first academic year led me to feel good about myself. In the second academic year, although the task of our neuroscience courses was not heavy, I also started two difficult courses: I decided to combine molecular biology and neurobiology at that time, so not only should I learn my own neuroscience courses well, but also non professional UCSF specialty courses should be learned as well as their professional students.
I have opened genetics (Biochem 200A) and molecular biology (Biochem 201) of biochemistry department additionally. The main lecturer of genetics is the best I have ever heard of in my life: Ira Herskowitz (1946-2003), who is always good at persuasion. His examination questions are very interesting and ingenious. I arrange it as an exam class (to be graded by A, B and C). I also take a one-year course in molecular biology in the Department of Biochemistry (the course numbers of the two semesters are Biochemistry 201A and 201B, and the name is Bio Reg, biological regulatory systems），
This arrangement is finally unbearable. Hyperthyroidism will lead to brain fever, sleeplessness at night, and poor physical strength. In the end, it is too weak to do a push up. It is difficult to climb high slopes in school every day. Because heredity is a scoring, I concentrated on the test of heredity (Biochem 200A), and got B, but did not take the test of Biochem 201A, and got I (unfinished, only satisfactory S is given for elective courses, dissatisfied U, and unfinished I). In the second semester of the second academic year, Biochem 201B automatically continued 201A, and got U without going to class.
I didn't tell my family about this kind of thing (in the first year of studying abroad, I estimated that I had written 150 letters to China, of which about 50 letters were to my parents). It's useless for students at this age to know about it.
Later in the second semester of the second academic year, the doctor proved that I was suffering from hyperthyroidism rather than looking for disease without disease. After radiotherapy, the thyroid gland was removed, but the sequela was that I had to take thyroxine every day for 37 years.
In the third academic year, I (R) read Biochem 201 A and B again, both of which passed S.
Neurobiology itself is followed by "developmental neurobiology", "sensory neurobiology", "cellular neurobiology" and other sub courses, each semester (such as Neurosci 222 in the second semester, Neurosci 224 in the fifth semester, and Neurosci 224 in the eighth semester, all of which no longer care about scores, so A and B do not remember). The visual and auditory scientists also specially arrange courses. Hearing scientists study very well, but give very poor lectures. Few of the students who listened to the class did not sleep. One credit of Neurosci 220 refers to listening to academic reports and participating in magazine clubs, and 8 credits of Neurosci 250 refers to research (only 4 credits are calculated in the first two academic years, and 8 credits are calculated for full-time research after passing the qualification examination at the end of the second academic year).
I have also taken courses in other departments in the future, but I did not register or take examinations. I have listened to Charles Epstein and Dave Cox, Bob Stroud and Bob Fletterick, Harold Varmus and Mike Bishop, etc. It is useless for graduate students to take part in the exam and get scores. What they can take with them is what they really learn.
I'm afraid that many people like me have problems in arranging the relationship between personal life and career. In those years, some people stopped doing business after talking about their friends and experiencing setbacks. Unfortunately, their talents and their parents' expectations.
UCSF courses and academic reports have benefited me all my life. Once learned, you can begin to accumulate for the last decades. For those who can't, these aspects have been blank for decades.
To put it bluntly, I am afraid that there are not enough people who know biology to my level.
First draft February 23, 2014
Words in 2023 and 2024 are slightly revised and supplemented
Edit and approve: Dake
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