In the midst of summer, the wind is flourishing and the future is full of possibilities. The sound of Li Ge begins, and the graduation season of 2023 arrives as scheduled. The official WeChat account of the School of Statistics and Management inherits tradition and will continue to launch a series of reports on outstanding graduates, showcasing the style of outstanding graduates in the school. First class majors cultivate first-class undergraduate talents. While sharing the fruitful results of talent cultivation, we sincerely hope that more students can draw nourishment, gather strength, and continue to write brilliance from the growth process of outstanding graduates. I also wish every graduate a bright future, live up to their youth, and forge ahead. Please stay tuned for a long time!
Dai Runpeng
19th level Statistical Experimental Class
Graduation destination: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph.D. in Biostatistics
In my four years at the National Institute of Statistics, I have learned a lot, not only statistical knowledge, but also how to face choices and anxiety. As a freshman or sophomore, I often regret choosing Caida University, but if I were to go back to the college entrance examination and fill out my college application again, I would still choose to attend the School of Finance and Economics without hesitation. Every year, I draw nourishment from the recommendations of my senior students. Now, I also hope to share my four years of college life with my younger students. This is my summary of my college life, and I also hope to do my best to provide some help to my confused younger students. Perhaps my writing skills are not good, but I hope to be sincere enough.
01
grope
Entering the University of Finance and Economics was a coincidence. After the college entrance examination, I accidentally learned about quantitative finance through a senior. At that time, I thought investing with mathematical tools was a cool and lucrative job, so I made finance at the University of Finance and Economics my first choice. But the pressure line was pulled into the public pipe. Perhaps moved by the word 'hardcore' in mathematics and economics, I immediately switched to the School of Economics and Mathematics Economics upon enrollment. Pursuing a GPA and applying for graduate school admission were regarded as the golden rules. At that time, I did not have a clear goal, but I believed that GPA was important whether it was for work, applying for graduate school admission, or going abroad.
Learning is not a painful thing for me, I enjoy the process of acquiring knowledge, it can greatly satisfy my curiosity. As a freshman, I was amazed by the depth of political economy ideas taught by Professor Chen Bo in class. At the same time, I also enjoyed abstract and rigorous mathematical analysis, as well as the joy brought by pondering and deriving theorems. In the first two years of learning, it was more like exam oriented education, following the teacher step by step and spending a lot of time memorizing and taking exams, without using this time to broaden one's knowledge. I remember there were always many questions at that time, confused by some proof ideas, trying to find some intuitive understanding, but repeatedly reviewing PPTs and lecture notes did not get what I wanted. If I could go back in time, I would tell myself not to limit myself to the classroom and to read more excellent foreign textbooks.
02
Transferred to the Institute of Statistics
In my freshman year, Tony Cai, a professor at Wharton (later found out to be a big shot), gave a lecture at the University of Finance and Economics on statistics and AI. The lecture deeply shocked me about the industry disruption caused by AI and the role of statistics in AI. My life mentor at the School of Economics, Professor Zhou Yahong, also talked to me about the impact of AI on the traditional financial industry. At the window of transferring majors in my freshman year, although I knew that my ranking might drop significantly after transferring to the School of Management, I still decided to follow my interests.
After switching majors, my ranking did indeed drop significantly. Watching my achievements in my freshman year rapidly depreciate and there was little hope of maintaining my position in Tsinghua University, I felt very sad at that time. I remember that night I walked on the lawn in front of the technical school, feeling very anxious about the future. It looks a bit funny now, but it does make me reflect on the meaning of 'roll'. If the purpose of the high school "test paper" is to get into a good university, it is understandable, but if the university "test paper" is for the purpose of ensuring postgraduate admission, it is a bit sad. The purpose of living seems to always be to roll over to a "better" next stage, living is like rushing on, and this "rolling over" is endless. For me, acquiring knowledge is something I enjoy, so I should grasp this process and follow my heart. GPA and exams are just some way to achieve my goals, and I should not be constrained by them.
In my sophomore year, I self-taught Stanford CS229 machine learning on Bilibili. In Professor Andrew Ng's class, I fell in love with machine learning. In my eyes, machine learning has a wide range of application scenarios, many models are intuitive, and there are rigorous mathematical and statistical theories. The excellent course design and high-quality coursework of CS229 also gave me my first admiration for American education. At that time, I thought that if I could invent a classic machine learning model and everyone was using my model, how fulfilling it would be. But going abroad and pursuing a PhD is still a long way off for me.
In my sophomore year, I had the privilege of studying "Mathematical Statistics" by Dean Feng Xingdong. This is a very difficult course, but it is also the best course I have taken in my four years of college. Teacher Feng pays attention to leaving blank spaces in class, often guiding us to think about the relationships between knowledge, grasp the essence of problems instead of getting lost in details, which forces us to spend time studying textbooks outside of class. Reading the textbook repeatedly (at least five times) has made me deeply understand the meaning of reading a book a hundred times. The first time, I often get lost in details, but the more I read, the more I can appreciate the clever connections between statistical knowledge. This experience made me realize the significance of reading excellent textbooks and articles. Afterwards, I also became accustomed to referring to an additional classic English textbook instead of just reading lecture notes and PPTs. Different textbooks often give me different perspectives and inspirations. In class, Teacher Feng's passion for statistics and research deeply touched me, and it also gave me the idea of doing research for the first time. Teacher Feng often reminds us in class to have a long-term perspective when conducting research, to cultivate a solid theoretical foundation rather than focusing solely on the gains and losses of GPA. I have a deep understanding of this. We often exclaim that a certain senior sister is so amazing. The top few students in the whole college went to Qingbei for recommendation. It's like getting a high GPA can get you into a top school, and once you go to a top school, your life will be smooth sailing. Little do they know that further education is just a small step in life, and GPA is only a small part of this small step. Perhaps a greedy GPA can reach a local optimum, but looking at this slight numerical advantage over four years of personal improvement in college may not be important or determine anything. I often regret that in the past two years, I was too focused on my GPA and missed out on many interesting things.
During the winter break of my sophomore year, I took advantage of the opportunity of a top-notch research project to find Professor Zhou Fan to do research. The main reason was to try whether research was fun or not, and whether it was suitable for me. From learning basic knowledge (Stanford CS231n computer vision course, Berkeley CS285 deep reinforcement learning course) to small projects on tumor segmentation, I gradually gained a certain understanding of the process of generating, verifying, and failing ideas in scientific research. I also developed the ability to read papers, write code, and derive formulas. I think the feeling of alternating emotions in research (sometimes feeling helpless and wanting to give up, sometimes feeling like the idea is great and even at the level of a Nobel Prize) is quite exhilarating. Until now, I still vividly remember the repeated failures I experienced when deriving proof during the summer vacation of my junior year, but the joy brought by completing it in the end is unforgettable. Teacher Zhou Fan has given me full trust and pushed me to a bigger platform. I have participated in some cool seminars one by one and have also met many excellent teachers.
Once while chatting with Teacher Zhou Fan, he asked me if I wanted to go to the United States to pursue a PhD? Actually, my previous goal has always been to apply for graduate school, and it seems impossible for me to go to the United States to pursue a PhD (except for several previous terms where I didn't have senior students). Although there are only some possibilities and even no samples to refer to, I immediately decided to switch from pursuing recommendation to pursuing a PhD in the United States. Yeah, why not give it a try? Reading a PhD and doing some interesting research is much more fun than writing a GPA.
Under the guidance of applying for a PhD, I gradually downplayed exams and GPA after entering my junior year, and shifted my focus to researching related knowledge and conducting research on my own. I read some books one by one, including Durrett's Probability Theory and Application and Sutton's Reinforcement Learning (both very good and highly recommended). I also took some good courses at the Information Management Department, such as Algorithm Design by Professor Lu Pinyan and Optimization Theory by Professor Jiang Bo (also strongly recommended). My GPA and ranking have slightly declined, but I feel that I have gained more ability improvement and am busy but happy, so I am not very concerned about it anymore.
The application season went relatively smoothly, with over a dozen applications submitted and three or four responses received. After the application season ended, I started my first internship at a private equity firm with an interest in the quantitative industry and the goal of earning some living expenses. It can be considered a beginning and end correspondence, satisfying my curiosity four years ago.
03
Some regrets
Looking back on my four years in college, I often lament that I spent almost all my time on studying and research, and didn't travel much. I'm ashamed that I haven't read many books outside of my major to broaden my horizons. I hope to make up for these regrets in the last half of the year.
04
some suggestions
1. Dare to try (internship or research) and discover your interests/abilities as early as possible.
2. Life is not a simple optimization problem. Standing in the present, we cannot predict the future and provide the global optimal solution. When faced with choices, often following one's heart is enough (choosing another one may not necessarily be better). There is no need to regret your choice, there is no inevitability, everything is the best choice.
05
In conclusion
Looking back on my four years in college, I have received a lot of help from everyone. I would like to first thank Professor Zhou Fan for taking me on the path of scientific research, trusting me, and supporting me all the way. Dean Feng is my mentor in statistics, and his passion for academia continues to inspire me. Thank you to Dean Zhou Yahong and Dean Wu for guiding me when I was lost. I would also like to thank Brother FH, Sister JP, and other senior students who have helped me. You are the guides on my path of growth. Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to Sister Xinyi and Teacher Jingsi. The efficient administrative system of the Institute has allowed me to experience warmth.
two thousand and twenty-three
ending
The School of Statistics and Management is deeply innovating its talent training model, actively reforming practice, consolidating professional foundations, deepening school enterprise cooperation, attaching importance to collaborative education, and striving to promote students to combine theory with practice. It is committed to cultivating first-class composite statistical talents with firm ideological beliefs, strong political positions, profound professional foundations, and solid research abilities, and contributing statistical wisdom to the construction of a world-class university with distinctive financial and economic characteristics.
