Series 5: From Student to Teacher
“Green mountains share the same clouds and rain, the bright moon has never been two places” — Studies, graduation, and employment
The brief two years of study at the Software School soon ended. In June 2004, the first graduation ceremony of the Software School was held at the Huxi Conference Center. The school invited all graduates’ parents. From Teacher Wan’s report, we learned the first cohort achieved 100% employment, with average monthly salaries significantly higher than other majors. Academician Zhou Xingming awarded each of us our degree certificates and took photos — a tradition that continues in our graduation ceremonies.
After we graduated, the Software School moved from Huxi to Jiading. Tianyou Building, which had witnessed the Software School’s初期 struggles and gradual rise to glory, was repurposed. Without your Software School students keeping late-night company, do you feel lonely? If you visit Tongji’s Huxi Campus on Zhennan Road today, you can still see the “Tongji University Software School” monument standing beneath Tianyou Building. Perhaps it alone silently tells passersby of the memories witnessed here that time cannot erase.
After graduation, I chose to continue my studies as a directly-admitted graduate student. Since the Software School couldn’t yet accept engineering master’s students, all seven of us in my cohort were被迫 sent to the CS Department of the Telecom School, pursuing a master’s in Computer Software and Theory under Professor Chen Rong.
Professor Chen Rong graduated from the University of Illinois. After 1992, he worked at Microsoft in the US, witnessing the birth of Windows OS, IE browser, .NET platform, and the original Windows CE. He personally participated in designing and developing IE browser, COM and COM+ technologies, and .NET. In 2000, he returned to China to found Kotei Century, independently developing the Elastos operating system — a component-based internet embedded OS with完全自主知识产权, now used in China’s 3G phone platforms. Professor Chen is less like a erudite university professor and more like a battle-hardened veteran who has spent years in the software industry. He has deep and thorough insights into the history, present, and future of the software industry, and practices what he preaches. The Elastos OS encapsulates his wisdom and ideas. Although its market推广 hasn’t been ideal, his spirit deserves respect.
The first year of graduate courses in the CS Department was boring — almost a repetition of undergraduate material. The low pressure gave me time to arrange my own schedule. During that year, I read the source code of several large software systems: the Java Virtual Machine, .NET CLR, a small compiler, the Micro Window graphics system, etc. Reading these codes greatly enhanced my understanding of large software architectures and concepts — a benefit that lasted for years.
From the second year of graduate school, I had to work with my advisor. Professor Chen Rong’s company was in Zhangjiang Software Park, where software companies clustered. So I followed him to Zhangjiang and lived there, beginning my quasi-programmer career at his company. Zhangjiang is called a high-tech park, but aside from a few pharmaceutical companies, most are IT companies. Apart from Zhangjiang Town, there are basically no residential areas. People rush in for work in the morning and rush out after work. Often, once it gets dark, the wide, pitch-black roads are completely empty. Zhangjiang has a unique feature: all roads are named after Chinese and foreign scientists — Zu Chongzhi Road, Guo Shoujing Road, Curie Road, etc. I often thought, since these are all software companies, why not name roads after famous programmers — like Gates Road, Jobs Road, or even Qiubo Jun Road. By the time I finished my master’s, I had lived in Zhangjiang for a year and a half. Zhangjiang became the area I knew best in Shanghai.
At Professor Chen’s company, my main work was writing drivers for his operating system. This deepened my understanding of system底层 knowledge and reinforced my determination to continue on the embedded path. More importantly, everything about his OS was open. An operating system encompasses everything — besides the OS itself, it involves networking, compilers, graphics systems, databases, and a series of core computer technologies. I’ve always had a special fondness for operating systems. Understanding the secrets inside an OS makes other technologies seem like “standing atop Mount Tai, looking down on all other mountains.”
March 8, 2007 was my master’s thesis defense day. Two and a half years of graduate生涯 were finally over. I became a young person in society again. Teacher Wan多次 urged me during my studies to stay and work for the school. He even hosted several dinners — Chinese, Western, buffet. But for many years, my dream had been “to become an outstanding software engineer, bringing people全新的 computing experiences” (this motto still hangs on my blog). I had never considered becoming a teacher. Working at the school, though still dealing with software, would essentially dash my long-cherished dream of being a software engineer. The choice “To Be or Not to Be” is always painful. Thinking of how I had watched the school grow from small to large, weak to strong, and how my growth轨迹 aligned with the school’s development — I had deep feelings for the school. “A drop of water should be repaid with a gushing spring.” So I ultimately accepted Teacher Wan’s invitation. Perhaps I couldn’t be a software engineer myself, but if I could teach and produce more outstanding software engineers than myself, that would be another way to realize my dream. In the end, I placed my hopes on the current students.
Looking back on those graduate years, my biggest gain was having relatively quiet time to systematically总结 my previous learning, internships, and work, and plan for my future. Many people who have worked for years return to school for this very reason…