Li Yushu: Teacher's Day Special - Mentors

　　As the saying goes, reincarnate with your eyes closed, reincarnated with your eyes open.

　　On the path of my life, I have had the privilege of "closing my eyes" or "opening my eyes" and meeting several mentors who are of great significance to me.

(a)

　　Most people's lives will have moments of confusion and confusion to a greater or lesser extent. When I entered Peking University Medical School, I didn't study my favorite major. My freshman year of college had just escaped from my parents' control, and my life was in a chaotic stage of initial learning and self-management, lack of goals, and I was very lazy in life and study. Because my mind is not stupid, I have long been accustomed to studying well without working hard, and occasionally going to the teacher's office to answer a question, I can be first and second in the exam. In terms of family life, my parents are open-minded and reasonable, and I don't have the spiritual baggage brought by my original family, and I live like Jia Baoyu, who grew up in a honey jar in Cao Xueqin's pen, eating all day long and doing nothing.

　　Mr. He, who taught advanced mathematics in the first semester of his freshman year, was very special. At that time, Peking University was implementing electronic teaching, requiring all teachers to "upgrade" from blackboard teaching to fully using PPT teaching. Mr. He believes that theorems and formulas need to be deduced step by step in order to deepen understanding and memory, so as to achieve better learning results. However, PPT flashes page by page, and high-concentration information slides quickly, which cannot improve the quality of teaching. So he refused to use PPT to teach, insisted on using board books to derive theorems and formulas, and asked us to take notes. In order to force Mr. He to "conform", the institute demoted him from full professor to associate professor. But Mr. He is still the same, and it is useless. After a period of "stalemate", because Mr. He was so popular with the students, the relevant departments had to give him "teaching and reinstatement".

　　I like people who are "ignorant of current affairs" who are cold and mighty. So, I often went to Mr. He's office Q&A class with another female classmate who loves mathematics. One afternoon, when we were about to leave after asking questions, Mr. He stopped us and said solemnly, "I have taught many smart girls, but many of them chose to return to their families and give up their careers after graduation. I hope you don't give up and keep going on this path. ”

　　I felt that the veil that had been in front of my eyes since I first entered the university was taken away with a "whoosh"! So I made up my mind to pull myself together and start preparing to change departments and change to my favorite major. Then, he was admitted to Oxford for a Ph.D. and has been sticking to the path of scientific research until now. Every time I want to leave the academic world, this "torture" will sound in my head, and I will silently cheer for myself.

(b)

　　When I was in college, I liked physical chemistry the most. When I was doing my graduation project in the fourth year of university, I chose to work in the group of Professor Liu of the Department of Physics and Pharmacy to do research on the physical and chemical properties of micelles. My tutor, Ms. Liu, is one year younger than my mother, and she has given me meticulous guidance in my studies and life. At that time, it was not uncommon for academic bigwigs to embezzle funds for scientific research projects for private use, and many people had not yet "broken the law". However, Mr. Liu told us that if we set up our own group in the future, we must not embezzle scientific research project funds, and we must make money innocently. It didn't take long for professors to be dealt with for this.

　　In daily life, Mr. Liu also taught me how to teach students according to their aptitude. She said that there are two senior sisters in the group, one has strong research ability, but is not strong-willed; The other experimented with ordinary ideas, but very actionable. In response to such a situation, for the one who is easy to retreat, Mr. Liu will encourage her to try her own ideas and dispel her doubts about the feasibility of each experiment one by one; For the other one, Ms. Liu will ask her to list the possible risks in advance before trying each idea, and establish a more comprehensive and meticulous experimental plan, instead of doing it at the right time.

　　I was just an undergraduate student at the time, and I was a little curious why the teacher would teach me how to take students. She said to me that one day you will have your own study group, and you will not be a student forever. Ms. Liu passed on the experience she found most useful to me. Education is a process of inheritance, and there is an obligation to correct it. She hopes that each of her students will take as few detours as possible in their future scientific research.

　　Before I went to study in the UK, Mr. Liu, who had studied in Germany, was very depressed because I did not want to be admitted to the graduate school of Peking University, and told me that I could return to China after graduating from my doctorate. The reason is simple and simple: the standard of living abroad may be a little higher, but it is difficult for strangers to have a sense of belonging, and the huge difference in "appearance" cannot be erased by speaking a foreign language proficiently; Working hard in other places, the living conditions will not change much in the past few decades, the foreign land is sparsely populated, there is little communication, the loneliness grows with the years, after returning to China, I find that the motherland is developing rapidly, and the contemporaries who return to China are also developing very well, and the psychological gap is very big - where is not all doing scientific research, it is better to come back and contribute to the motherland.

　　When Mr. Liu said this, I was still excited about starting a new life at Oxford University, and I thought that it would be better to stay abroad. The teacher speaks earnestly, and the listener despises.

(c)

　　When I really went to Oxford to study, I found that the living and scientific research conditions abroad are, as my tutor said, not very good. The standard of living facilities is maintained in the 80s of the last century, and the instruments and equipment used in the laboratory are also very old. After United Kingdom's "Brexit", the quality of life is even worse day by day. Walking on the main road in the city, I am often forced by refugees from a certain area to grab my arm and force me to "donate". On my way to the lab, I passed by Keble College, the University Museum of Natural Sciences, and the Department of Biochemistry, where teenagers or homeless people gathered to smoke marijuana, and the whole city felt depressed and dwindling. Looking back on Mr. Liu's entrustment back then, I found that I was ignorant when I wanted to stay abroad.

　　My PhD supervisor at the University of Oxford, who graduated first in chemistry and completed his PhD at this university, went on to work as a postdoc at United States California Polytechnic University, and then returned to Oxford to teach. The tutor speaks densely, and the golden sentences are frequent. United Kingdom are also good at satire and humor, so there are many sharp reviews of schools. For example, because most of the chemistry students I trained no longer engage in chemical research or work in the chemical industry after graduation (low salary and high work intensity), my tutor "complained" that he felt that the biggest sorrow of the chemistry department of Oxford University was that less than 20% of the chemistry professionals who had worked hard to train remained in academia, and the rest went to investment banking, consulting, and insurance to make money. When I commented that Oxford University was "not as perfect as I imagined", my supervisor also took the opportunity to "make up for it" and said that the reason why Oxford University is world-famous is not because of how good it is, but because other universities and institutions in the world are more collapsed than it, and it is all "foiled" by its peers! The list goes on and on.

　　The essence of British irony is that although it is poisonous in words, there is no lack of responsibility in the heart.

　　Although my tutor "complains" about the endless shortcomings of the department every day, he personally practices the mission of cultivating every young person who has the potential to become a chemist. During my Ph.D., almost all chemistry and biology students from all over the world who sent him an email were able to come to our group for short- and medium-term internships. I can't understand this behavior, some of these applicants come from obscure universities, their education is worrying, and there are even spelling mistakes in English in their application letters. Cultivating such an intern with a weak foundation is a waste of our time and energy. When they were almost able to get started, the internship period for these students ended. I will never do this kind of work that is completely disproportionate to the input and output. However, the supervisor said that as a professor at Oxford University, in addition to cultivating top elites, he also has the obligation to provide high-quality chemical research and education for the society, so he is willing to give any student who wants to come for an internship the opportunity to exchange and visit in Oxford.

　　At the end of the first year of my Ph.D., I was immediately faced with the "opening question" assessment, and I was very nervous. The tutor asked me, what do you think is the significance of the "proposal report" assessment? I said, I think it is an examination for industry leaders to assess whether a junior researcher has the basic research level to enter the doctoral stage. The supervisor said that for you, the "opening" assessment, the "conclusion" assessment, and the graduation thesis defense should not be an "examination", but should be regarded as the best time to show your scientific research results to practitioners in the same major. He said that at the doctoral level, everyone is very specialized in the topic, and you are the most professional expert in this topic in the world, even the senior examiners will not know your topic better than you; So you need to be relaxed and confident to present your research results to them during the year, rather than worrying about what to do if you don't pass the exam.

　　This change in mentality has greatly increased my confidence in my scientific research work, and I have successfully passed the "opening" report, "conclusion" report and graduation defense one by one.

(iv)

　　During the "coronavirus" epidemic, I returned to China. Later, I started my postdoctoral work in Shenzhen, and I was fortunate to meet a perfect postdoctoral supervisor.

　　Young, wise, self-disciplined, logical, insightful, decisive and emotionally stable, the mentor is a "hexagonal warrior" with no weaknesses. He studied biology and computer science at MIT in the United States, and then went to the University of California, Berkeley to conduct synthetic biology research and earn a Ph.D., which is considered a standard resume for the industry elite. Subsequently, he moved to China to join a well-known biotechnology company in Shanghai as a technical leader. His experience in the bio-industry has allowed him to witness the cyclical ups and downs of this field. After completing one milestone industrial project after another, he left the industry on the eve of the company's IPO and returned to the academic circle to do synthetic biology research that he wanted to do useful to humans.

　　I saw his postdoc advertisement at Nature Careers, emailed me to apply, and quickly agreed on a job agreement. However, because my supervisor at Oxford asked me to do research work in my group, my father also asked me to respect my supervisor's arrangement. After weighing many opinions, I had no choice but to release the post-Bo tutor pigeons. After a while, I thought about it and thought about it, but I still wanted to work under my postdoctoral supervisor, so I applied for a postdoctoral position in his group again a year later. My mentor happily accepted me as a disciple, completely ignoring the previous dishonest behavior. Empathy, but for myself, I can't be as generous as him. I admire the mind of my mentor.

　　During the three years since I did my PhD, I have never seen my mentor take a break. Working 12 hours a day, Monday to Sunday, 365 days a year. Every Friday morning, it is the time of the group's group meeting, and even if the "sea is dry and the rocks are rotten", our group meeting will not be broken. Even if there is something to do, the supervisor can always provide us with scientific research guidance. For a while, when the instructor was learning to drive at the driving school on the weekend, I called him to discuss the problems encountered in the experiment, and I could hear the intermittent noise of the driving school radio in the background. My personality was originally a little loose, but when I saw that my predecessors, who were more brilliant than myself and 10,000 times more successful, were so self-disciplined, I was immediately inspired and urged myself not to slack off.

　　The supervisor is extremely strict and meticulous in his approach to scientific research. The topics I did in my research in Shenzhen were very niche, and I could hardly find a partner who would collide with me. The doctoral supervisor felt that this project was difficult to succeed and the feasibility was not high. However, the postdoctoral supervisor felt that my idea was scientific and feasible, and although it would be difficult to operate, it was worth trying.

　　Throughout the research process, my postdoc was receiving negative results in the second year, and the progress of the project was 0% for the whole year. I didn't apply for any funding, and I relied on the research funds applied for by my supervisor and other friends in the group to sustain my research. If it were any other teacher, such a project would have been stopped a long time ago. However, in the face of several failures, my mentor did not cut the subject. Every time he saw me get the opposite results of an experiment that I expected, he pushed me to think about all the possibilities of a problem, and asked me to design an experiment to eliminate or confirm the root cause of the problem one by one. This forced me to carefully comb through my scientific knowledge, revise my knowledge of basic concepts, and clarify the most logical scientific laws that can explain all anomalous observations.

　　In my tutor's place, I can't answer "I don't know", I can only answer "I haven't figured it out at the moment, I'll go back and check first, and make a PPT and send it to you when there's progress". And, he's really going to follow up on your ideas in the coming weeks and continue to help solve every problem you encounter. Every word I uttered, it reverberated from the teacher. For my mentor, even if the results of the research produced by the project are contrary to the initial assumptions, the experimental results are meaningful – these results bring us closer to the truth behind the research.

　　Science is not a discipline that pursues success, it is only a discipline that pursues truth, nothing more.

　　It was very different from my study life at Oxford. During my PhD, I was used to saying "I don't know" in the face of unexplained experimental data. After all, scientific research is full of unknowns, and this is normal.

　　My postdoctoral mentor made me realize that problems that cannot be quickly concluded are very likely to be solved after careful analysis, research, and brainstorming. So, in the first place, we should not just be satisfied that I have discovered a strange scientific phenomenon, but constantly ask ourselves: why is this outlier occurring, and what is the science behind it? It was this strong sense of dissatisfaction from my mentor that aroused my scientific curiosity and pushed me to think more deeply about every scientific research "pain point" I encountered, and to chew on the abnormal observations I encountered in my experiments infinitely.

　　Doing research with my postdoctoral supervisor made me realize the most authentic joy of studying scientific problems. Immersed in happiness, the research project that puzzled me at the beginning already has an "eyebrow".

　　Mentors are the nobles of my life.

　　At Peking University, Mr. He taught me to insist on myself and not give up my career; Mr. Liu taught me to be an honest person, to teach students according to their aptitude, and hoped that I could return to China after completing my studies.

　　At Oxford, my PhD supervisor taught me academic confidence and taught me a universal education with a mission to help the world.

　　In Shenzhen, my postdoctoral supervisor carefully cultivated my uncompromising attitude towards the unknown, which gave me the motivation to pursue the truth unremittingly.

　　Parents' expectations for their children are often given to them because they are "born by me". However, the high hopes placed on the mentors of these top universities and research institutions have made us, who were previously unfamiliar and only briefly accompanyed, come to believe that perhaps we really have the potential to make an outstanding contribution to the world as they wish. The instructors take each student seriously because they know all too well that the burden of transforming the world is passed down from generation to generation, and that each generation has to go through a journey with its own mission.

　　The most important significance of education lies in the transmission from generation to generation.

　　Unforgettable teacher's kindness. Each of my mentors, and their teachings, has left a deep imprint on me. I will carry this imprint and pass on these beautiful expectations and qualities to each of my students one day in the future.

　　Li Yushu holds a bachelor's degree from Peking University and a doctorate from the University of Oxford. Now he is doing postdoctoral research at a research institute in Shenzhen, Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 2018, while studying for a PhD at the University of Oxford, he founded the official account of "Yanyun" with his parents and wrote a series of articles on "Oxford Diary".

Source: "Yanyun" public account