Plan of this semester – Goals after I have been offered admission to PhD
By Raymond on Mar 4, 2009 in Application to Graduate School, Efficient life
Some friends ask me what I am going to do after I have got the PhD offers. Actually I have already set up my main goals of this semester during the winter vacation.
Health. It should be the first priority. It is the basis of a successful career and a happy life. This semester I can manage my time more freely because of fewer courses. It will be easier for me to develop and maintain some healthy habits such as getting up early and having sports regularly. I will drink more water and eat more fruits every day. I should also have a dental check – I have not done so for a year. With a healthier body, I can do everything full of energy, enthusiasm and awareness. It is the most important long term investment.
Knowledge. I realize that there is too little training for neuroscientists in Tsinghua. Only taking a course of 2 credits is not enough. Getting good offers does not mean I am strong. I will get myself more familiar with both basic knowledge and research frontier by reading textbooks and papers.
Analytic and critical mind. From the experience of interview, I discovered that I rarely had the chance to debate with others about scientific topics and my own research projects. By just reading papers alone, without communication with others, holes or minor faults of an idea or an experiment are hard to be found. I should take the initiative to talk with professors and students, and see if I can take part in the debates of some blogs and forums about science. Also, before I leave Tsinghua, I hope to visit all the labs in my department. Contact me if you want to join 
Creativity. I have long been trying to improve my creativity by reading different types of books, from psychology, history, business and fictions. I will keep it up.
Graduation thesis. This is the first thesis I write in my life, so I’d better try my best, even though wonderful results are not expected. I will also try to establish a simple system of visual associative learning for Drosophila. It is not related to my thesis, but I will see if I can make some contributions to the posterity of my lab. It should be a great learning chance to set up a system by myself.
I also want to do some travelling, but my lover is busy this semester. I decide to work hard with her.
You may find that most of my goals are long term, related to health and abilities. “Don’t you need to prepare for your life in United States?”, some may ask. Of course, I have to prepare for my luggage and my student visa, but I think I don’t need to put too much focus on these almost 100% successful matter. We cannot have too many goals at one time. Put those which are important in long term and may not easily catch our attentions in the first place. Some Chinese students are worried that they are not able to drive in US. To me, it is not a problem worth preparation. Everybody, no matter what his education level is, can learn how to drive. It is incredible that it will become my problem and affect my life.
I still remember that when I was preparing to study in Beijing during the end of high school, my parents had a lot of worries for me. “Beijing is very cold. It even snows. You need to prepare a lot of thick coats.” “In mainland China you should know how to ride a bicycle, because buildings are far apart.” “Do you know how to wash your clothes??” All of these “problems” were easily solved as soon as I came to Beijing, by practice or by money. It turned out the most serious problems are about study and learning, which cannot be prepared and tackled within a short period.
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