It is my dad who gave me some of my earliest and most important experiences with electrical engineering. He is a senior engineer at a microwave relay station. At the relay station, I had the opportunity to be introduced to all kinds of electronic equipments, although about most of which, I have absolutely no idea what the mechanism within or their function is. Yet my father still tried hard to foster my interest and curiosity. He used to teach me to assemble a simple antenna and solder PCB board and at an early age, I managed to learn those very quickly. Early exposure to Electrical Engineering, thanks to my dad, built up my curiosity and interest in science and engineering. And that kind of curiosity has stayed with me ever since. That's the reason why I chose Electrical Engineering without hesitation when I entered Dalian University of Technology.
After getting into college, my interaction with Electrical Engineering turned from interests to solid study. Dalian University of Technology is renowned in China for its rigorous training in engineering. And what's special about my program is that it offers five-year double-major courses including electrical engineering, intensive English and liberal arts, so that enables students in engineering, not confined to engineering, but can also work with foreign language and humanities and help them become more well-rounded people. All of the classes are taught by the best professors in the department and it is the one of most selective programs in the university.
In my sophomore year, I entered the multimedia group lead by Prof. Kong, Xiangwei and got my debut contact with scientific research on image retrieval. The project is a National Nature Science Foundation of China (NSFC) key project named Research on the Service-oriented Commerce Intelligence and Methods of Knowledge Management. It is aimed to find a better way to search image with image, which is a very hot topic recently. After getting into the group, I began raiding the university library and tried to find every book that I could find on this topic, from scholarly journals like IEEE Image Processing to Gonzalez's classic textbook and browsing all kinds of related materials on the Internet. Because of its inter-disciplinary nature, image retrieval is related to operating system, database and coding or statistics and analysis. Image retrieval is difficult for me. And I know that there is much that is still there for me to learn. But whenever I am confronted with a problem, I can always find the strength inside that drives me to find the solution to the problem. The experience with image retrieval is beneficial to me not only that it gives me some on-hand experiences with different subjects, but also it teaches me the method to do scientific research, which I think is very important for my future graduate studies.
Getting into the multimedia group and hence begin my scientific research experience is one of the best decisions I made in college. However, I have always been reminding myself one of my basic understandings on scientific research of the undergraduate period: it is critical to lay a good foundation for the future. Don't just study for the temporary use. And that is one of the reasons why I put great emphasis on mathematics, which I think, is the cornerstone of scientific research of any subject. For instance, I fell in love with math modeling and got the Honorable Mention Award in Mathematical Contest in Modeling, which is one of the most influencing mathematical modeling contests in the world and participated by students from all countries. Because a lot of problems in image retrieval are optimization problems, I also got the opportunity to work with optimization. The idea "All engineering problems are optimization problems" always fascinated me just like what the "the Grand Unified Field" did to Albert Einstein. Moreover, I have also audited a lot of graduate-level math classes including Numerical Linear Algebra, Numerical Optimization, Financial Mathematics and Random Process. I think the solid math foundation I have established will be greatly beneficial to my future graduate studies. And I hope that I can get the opportunities to apply them in the engineering problems instead of just letting them stay there in applied mathematics.
In addition to the studying and scientific research, in college, I also enjoy meeting people from western countries and making friends with them. And I do consider socializing with them as a wonderful experience. I have made friends with my English teachers from US and kept in touch with them ever since. I believe that meeting people from different social, cultural and political background can give me, most of whose acquaintances are Chinese, a new perspective on the way I look at life, by digesting the nutrition from the western ideas and a better understanding on the western civilization, which has always been my curiosity and interests.
Five years in college is sure to be one of the most valuable experiences in my life. In retrospect, it has turned out to be very fruitful and productive. With only one year left, I can see that my college life is coming to and ending. But, I am also very looking forward to another beginning Undergraduate studies lay a good foundation for our knowledge structure and provide us with a direction. But the knowledge we have learnt is still far from intensive and practical. It would be a pity if one just leave the school and quit halfway. Through a graduate program, I could further explore the issues I confronted during my undergraduate years and get a truly systematic and detailed understanding on the major of electrical engineering. It is important to have opportunities to pursue possibilities and I think a graduate degree will open up positions that would not be available with just a Bachelors degree
Ever since the first day of my college, I have set up my mind, in the later days, to pursue my graduate studies in a foreign country. Because I believe that, by studying abroad, the cultural, academic, and personal development one can experience will be tremendous. During the four years afterwards, I have always kept this goal in my mind and tried my best to achieve it. I plan to spend the coming years completing an MS in the field of Electrical Engineering. After my MS, I will continue doing research either in academia or in industry towards developing new ideas and concepts in Telecommunications and contributing to its development. I would also like to contribute my share of knowledge to the economic and technological advancement. The distinguished faculty, exciting range of courses offered and state of the art research at EPF- Lausanne would make it a perfect stage for my graduate studies. In the EECS department of EPF-Lausanne, my research interests coincide with those of Prof. Mohammad Karzand and Prof. Rahul Shukla. In fact, I have been in contact with several of these professors and they consented on my strong background and intention to work with me. And I believe that my experience of French learning and my interest in French culture makes my residence there a wonderful experience.
