The next day, Professor Deng, a famous professor from HKUST, gave an algorithm analysis. Everyone got up very actively in the morning, cleaned up and washed their faces, and the sound of the mouthwash cups was loud. Professor Deng is a doctoral supervisor and vice dean. He is in charge of scientific research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation and the University Doctoral Program Fund. In addition to teaching graduate courses, he has also taught basic algorithm courses for all undergraduates.
There has always been a joke in Central South University of Science and Technology to describe Professor Deng’s teaching. He attends an academic forum to give a report on Monday, flies back to Nanzhou at midnight, and rushes to teach undergraduate classes at 7:30 in the morning. The next day he flies to Beijing to attend an operations research conference. After giving the report, he has to rush back to Nanzhou without stopping, as he has undergraduate classes on Thursday morning.
So if you want to listen to Professor Deng's class, you have to reserve a seat early in the morning, otherwise it will be really crowded. Lao Guo wiped his face with a washcloth, looked at Cheng Ran next to him in the mirror, and thought of the topic last night, and said, "Didn't you say you have a photo of your girlfriend? Take it out and let me see it?"
Wang Xinbo and Li Wei, who were organizing books at the desk, looked over. They were holding the textbooks of "Computer Algorithm Design and Analysis" that they would use today, as well as water cups. It was just a little easter egg after they had completed their preparations.
Cheng Ran said, "I looked for it but couldn't find it. Maybe I left it at home. Besides, even if I had it, I wouldn't show it to you guys." He was still upset about last night. You can go and ask around to find out when I wanted to pretend but no one gave me the chance.
The three of them laughed out loud and didn't take the matter seriously anymore. They just heartlessly went out of the house together. Seeing these three guys turning around and leaving, Cheng Ran twitched his lips and felt more and more that his decision was correct.
Professor Deng Xihua's algorithm class was held in a large classroom. When I arrived, I found that many students were already there. Even though it was only 7:10 in the morning, people were still pouring in at an exponential rate every minute. The first two rows of the classroom seemed to be left empty for girls, which seemed to be a "glorious tradition", but in fact many girls walked in and found a seat to sit down. The proportion of girls in HKUST is smaller than that of boys, but their quality is not low. There were many outstanding girls who were there, and they were expected to be the motivation for boys to come to class in the future.
Cheng Ran was sitting with the three guys beside him. When someone discovered someone else's beautiful new world, they would poke them with their elbows, one after another, and then gesture with their eyes to look over. Then there would often be comments and exchanges like Wang Xinbo's "Oh, this one is not good, give it seven points. That one is not bad, it's top-notch. Shish..."
It's probably a great pastime before class.
Professor Deng Xihua stepped into the classroom on time at eight o'clock. In fact, he is not as old as the titles he wears make people think. When I first met him in person, he was much younger than I had imagined. Deng Xihua put one hand in his trouser pocket and held a teaching preparation book in the other. He tapped the desk slightly and looked around the room. He had a calm and confident aura.
After all, he was a famous teacher. The audience immediately responded to his aura. The conversations and chats in the classroom gradually died down. For such a doctoral supervisor, a vice dean, giving lectures to undergraduates was a kind of top-down majesty. He spread out the textbook and went straight to the point, "Let's start the lecture."
Professor Deng Xihua's lectures don't have so many wonderful language turns, but he just throws out the essentials directly, and the progress is very fast. For many students at HKUST, if they don't learn the basic concepts by themselves first, the class will be a bit confusing. He also has a unique skill, that is, he basically has an impression of all the students he has met, because after a famous professor like him finishes his class at HKUST, many people come around to ask various questions. Ordinary professors only care about answering questions and can't remember people, but if someone has asked a question, he can mention the other person's name when he speaks next time, and give derivative thoughts and extended directions based on the question asked at that time.
Such students are very diligent, and with such encouragement, they may be able to maintain their enthusiasm for the subject. This is probably Deng Xihua's method, but to have such a set of skills, it can only be said that his brain is indeed very strong. In the words of the School of Computer Science, this is just "redundant calculation."
In today's class, Deng Xihua called several people's names one after another and asked them to answer questions. For example, he called a boy's name in the middle of the class and said, "In the last class, I talked about the stages of algorithm analysis and what tasks each stage completes. Student Li Yuran, please stand up and talk about it."
Then, under the gaze of the class, a boy in the left corner stood up and said, "To make a comprehensive analysis of an algorithm, it can be divided into two stages. Pre-analysis and post-test. Pre-analysis finds a time limit function of the algorithm. Post-test collects statistical data on the execution time and actual space occupied by the algorithm."
His answer was very clear, without any pause or space for thinking, which gave people a sense of urgency of such excellent competition. Many people turned to the corresponding part of the page, made some marks, and even took notes. Some people even looked at him many times.
The student who answered the question sat down at Deng Xihua's signal, and he felt a sense of relief. He was also a provincial champion in science, but of course not as famous as Cheng Ran in Central South University of Science and Technology. Moreover, the atmosphere and some strong people around USTC also brought him pressure, but it didn't matter. University was a new starting point and a time for re-ranking. Like many others, he had to strive to be the best in this stage.
Then there were several people who took the initiative to ask questions or express their own opinions. They were all like Li Yuran, the hardest-working people in the university, always on the way to ask questions to the teachers, and were definitely regulars in the study room from morning to night. They received praise from some professors, who thought that some of them had the shadow of Nie Chuan. In time, maybe another Nie Chuan would emerge from these people.
And it is very important that without exception, these people came very early, probably before dawn at 6 o'clock, to reserve seats in the classroom, so they sat in the front area of the classroom. In contrast, the people in dormitory 409 felt guilty when they looked at Cheng Ran who was in the same row with them in the back area. They had high scores in the entrance exam to Central South University of Science and Technology, and they were all considered masters. However, even the masters in martial arts can be divided into first-class and second-class. They all felt that they, second-class masters, seemed to drag down Cheng Ran, a first-class master.
It was because when compared with those top students in the University of Science and Technology of China, they realized that they were no match for them in terms of talent, IQ and hard work.
Li Wei remembered, "By the way, Cheng Ranjun, what book do you read every night?"
"puterArhiteture:AQuantitativeApproah, translated as 'Computer Architecture, Quantitative Research Methods'. It is a book written by John Sr., former president of Stanford University. This book should be the bible for high-level computer science students in the United States."
Several people looked at Cheng Ran as if they were listening to a mystery.
"I'm going to import textbooks. Can you understand them?" Although Li Wei and others didn't know what the book in Cheng Ran's hand was, English textbooks were different, especially imported computer textbooks. Many of them could not be translated domestically, and there were few translators who could accurately translate the precise language used to describe things. Sometimes an inaccurate definition would cause great trouble to students, and even make people misunderstand. Therefore, some text materials must be authentic in order to accurately grasp the essence.
This in turn requires extremely high professional and foreign language proficiency of learners, and even requires readers to be quite immersed in the latest internationally influential cutting-edge journals, forums, and documents. Otherwise, the origin, interpretation, and implementation methods of some of the professional terms are simply unknown. This is also the reason why China's IT lags behind the world. The language algorithm architectures at the forefront of the world are constantly being updated and evolved. These basically occur in first-class university research institutions such as MIT and Stanford, as well as laboratory research and development centers of related large enterprises and companies. If you want to get these things, the only way now is to go out and go to the place closest to truth and knowledge.
Otherwise, in China, even in the field of computer science, which relies on the Internet to spread knowledge, the number of people standing at the forefront is very small, and they will lag behind by a few months or half a year. If we expand the whole picture, the gap is two or three years. At the same time, many universities are chasing the IT craze and opening computer majors, but the textbooks are basically three to five years behind the industry's technological frontier. At present, Central South University of Science and Technology may be one of the few universities in China that is at the forefront of computer courses, but it is also extremely backward compared with the United States.
Of course, for Cheng Ran, a man who has lived two lives, the current frontier is just a visible part of the past.
Cheng Ran said to the three of them, "It's a bit difficult, just take your time."
…
Professor Deng Xihua's three-hour class ended after several breaks. At the end, the teaching assistant came over with the sign-in book and asked people to sign in one by one. Deng Xihua answered questions from students who gathered around him on the stage.
The teaching assistant handed the notebook to Cheng Ran and his group. After seeing Cheng Ran sign his name, the teaching assistant, who was a graduate student under Deng Xihua, whispered to Cheng Ran, "Please come to the Academic Affairs Office on the fourth floor later. Old Deng is looking for you."
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! I will try to have one every day from now on.