This is the first and also the last course I attend in Tsinghua which will be conducted by a total of 7 professors. They come from different universities such as Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins and Yale. The leaders Wang Xiaoqin and Hong Bo must have spent a lot of effort in putting all the things together. Their work and dedication on teaching should be highly appreciated. Even in top universities in the world, it is really difficult to invite so many professors to talk in one course, due to the lack of resources and professors in a specific area.

In a “multi-professors” course, each professor is specialized in their own areas. They can introduce to the students their previous and current research projects in a concise and detailed manner. Students are largely benefited when they can listen to the real experiences of the speakers themselves. Scientific research is not only composed of knowledge. It is a process itself. Students can learn the scientists’ mind in selecting a topic, defining a problem, searching for solutions by experiments and establishing theories by listening to the stories of discovery. Just knowing the basic knowledge, which can be easily found on the Internet, is far not enough to be a qualified researcher. Professors who just talk about words on a textbook are not qualified teachers.

Therefore, the basic aim of this course, stated by Wang, is to let the students understand the basic principles of systems neuroscience and learn more about the cutting edge of research. This is an ambitious goal. Without fundamental knowledge, more complicated but beautiful experiments and knowledge cannot be understood. Appreciation of current breakthroughs in research, on the other hand, gives the junior and senior students a chance to experience the most exciting part of neuroscience, and to decide whether or not they are really interested in the subject and thus choose the appropriate pathway in graduate school.

Although I have attended only a few lectures of Wang, I respected him a lot. He tries his best to provide the best learning conditions for his students, from teaching materials, diversity and quality of lecturers, a systematic and enlightening syllabus, and interaction between teachers and students. He finds out which departments the students come from, and teach accordingly. He is also good at using similes to deepen students’ understanding and talking about the stories of big scientific discoveries to raise their interests. No wonder Wang has successfully attracted Tsinghua students from all departments, including math, physics, engineering, computer, chemistry and biology students to learn about neuroscience.

Disappointingly, very few professors in my department have such dedication in teaching. Many of them have successfully scared the biology students away from doing biology research. Many students still do not know what they are really interested in when they graduate.

(Some Hong Kong students have asked me how to make use of the “identity as an HK student” in Tsinghua. One of my examples is to use the right of “special permission” to replace the low quality compulsory courses with great classes, such as the one mentioned above.)

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