Graduation Season: Confessions of a PhD student

（People's Daily Online）  15:00, July 01, 2013  

Life passes like a dream, college years flow by like a meteor across the night sky, short but beautiful. We have to leave the ivory towers and go to work, to live, to find our position in the society, to seek our future…

I'm Yan Rui, a PhD student from School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Peking University. I will graduate this year. I began my computer study in School of Computer Science and Engineering in Beihang University (Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics) in 2003, and was recommended for admission to Peking University after graduation.

I was more adept to arts study when I was young. I still remember that I got 49 out of 50 points on my essay in an exam in senior high school. My Chinese teacher was excited and told me that my essay scored 49 points. Why not 50 points? The teacher said it was inappropriate to give full marks. My grandfather and father both studied science and engineering. Therefore, I followed their advice and chose to study computer science.