In early autumn, everything has faded from the bustle, and has begun to become bright and clear. People belonging to this season also seem to have the calm and profound characteristics of autumn. In such a beautiful season, the guest of this corner is Yang Tianyi, the 2016 graduate from the International Department.
In 2020, he graduated from the computer science and engineering major of the University of California Irvine, gave up the University of Southern California, which has a higher comprehensive ranking, and went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, one of the strongest schools in the direction of artificial intelligence, for postgraduate study. Now, Yang Tianyi has successfully joined Amazon with his excellent achievements. In addition, as a senior photography enthusiast, Yang Tianyi spans the east and west coasts, and uses a delicate perspective to define life.
Before entering the university, although I had a strong interest in the computer itself, I did not completely decide whether my future direction was computer software or hardware. So, I majored in Computer Science & Engineering as an undergraduate. In general, the course includes half of the computer science and half of the computer hardware related content, so that I have enough time to plan and develop my career in the future during the four years of my undergraduate education.
In the first two years of my undergraduate study, my familiar friends and I participated in some small competitions similar to the Hackathon. In a weekend, the team needs to complete the whole process of conception, design, rapid development, and final product demonstration. Such projects let me experience the spirit of bold innovation and hands-on practice in the American science and technology circle, and affected my understanding of the computer itself later: computer can also be a completely independent hobby in addition to being a profession; If the personal knowledge reserve and ability are sufficient, individuals can create products that best meet their needs without having to buy commercial products. At the same time, I contacted some open-source communities, participated in the construction of some public open-source projects, and personally experienced the open-source spirit based on fully open technology and freedom to share knowledge. These have finally affected my graduate students’ choice to study computer science.
Of course, the above does not mean that hardware knowledge is useless. When I interned in Alibaba Dharma Institute in 2018, the doctoral students in the same group made great achievements in the field of machine learning, but they rarely knew about computer hardware. At the same time, I have experienced many research projects, and my understanding of computer hardware can help me make reasonable assumptions faster and quickly identify the problem. If you want to DIY some personal projects, the understanding of hardware is a prerequisite for the success of the project. A wide range of knowledge can help you quickly deal with some unexpected problems.
When choosing a graduate school, I didn’t choose the University of Southern California, but finally decided to go to UMass Amherst. On the one hand, there is also my personal reason: after studying in California for four years, I really want to experience the customs of the East Coast. On the other hand, although UMass is not outstanding in the comprehensive ranking that everyone likes to see, in the academic field of computer science, UMass is one of the schools with the strongest AI direction. More excellent academic resources are also the main reason why I chose UMass. In addition to learning many doctoral level courses, I also participated in various academic research projects, including but not limited to RL, RecSys, NLP, and the graph optimization compiler (ML System) for deep neural networks currently under research. I also published our NLP research results at the International Computational Language Conference (ACL) as a co-author at the beginning of this year.
In fact, the biggest difference between college and high school lies in the greater degree of freedom: there is no mandatory arrangement, and there is no curriculum. The university provides you with the richest academic and networking resources you can imagine. How to use these resources depends entirely on us. If you think you have fully mastered the knowledge of the introductory courses, you can go to see if there is a way to skip them directly through placement exam, or you can spend more time on the development of other individuals through self-study.
If you are confused about your future direction, it is helpful to try more courses in different disciplines during your freshman year and sophomore year; If you have a clear plan, you must make good use of the resources of the school. If you want to pursue academic development, you must have the courage to meet professors. It is a good way to ask questions in class and go to office hours after class. If you pay more attention to the future development in the workplace, it is a good way to expand your contacts to make more friends with students in the same major regardless of circle.
For graduate students, if you just consider taking more time to buffer employment, you must first consider the difficulty of the course and the friendliness of the internship policy, which will leave enough time for you to prepare for the interview in the future. However, if you want to make further progress in the academic field, it is far more effective to understand the strong programs and excellent professors of each school than to focus only on the comprehensive ranking. With the blessing of the connection of our school, you can get twice the result with half the effort for the application of PhD.
After graduation, I chose to drive across the east and west coast from California to Massachusetts. Before I left, I rolled my friend’s camera, and then bought some lenses in the local area, which was considered as a shot by half. After that, Lu continued to shoot many natural and cultural works. After the paper was published this year and I got the job offer, I used my free time to study the history of photography completely, and luckily borrowed a large number of classic albums from the library collections of the school and the surrounding liberal arts and science colleges. While I had a deeper understanding of photography, I also had a new creative idea. My recent project Counterparts is a blend of the different customs and traditions of the North and South of the United States that I recently traveled to, and a glimpse of the social status in the post epidemic era.
Three years in the International Department of Kunshan Middle School have made me more fully prepared for my undergraduate study. The relatively free environment has given me more space for self-development, giving me the opportunity to try out the content that I am interested in in mathematics, physics, computer and other disciplines. At the same time, in the learning life of high school, the ability of independent learning has been exercised: I use books or the Internet to search and learn, and master the knowledge I need, instead of passively waiting for the teacher’s teaching. This is especially critical in my undergraduate and graduate experience. Finally, for students applying for American universities, it is still helpful to take more AP courses if they have time and energy. This can help you skip many general education courses that have nothing to do with your major or that you are not interested in at all when you are a freshman or sophomore, so that you can quickly enter the high-level courses that you are willing to study.
During the interview, Yang Tianyi mentioned that the words of Nobel winner physicist Richard Feynman had a profound impact on him.
“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be.”
-Richard Phillips Feynman