California Institute of Technology —— The Hall of Soul in My Heart

It's graduation season again. Looking at the bar mitzvah and graduation photo in the circle of friends, I can't help but think back to the scene of my alma mater in the United States last month. California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is the place where my dream began when I was a child, and it is also the place where my study and life in the United States began.

Caltech, located in Pasadena, eastern California, is a world-famous private research university. The campus is small and the number of students is small, which is a portrayal of this prestigious school. However, my deepest experience as an alumnus is its beautiful campus, unique architecture, quiet environment, high academic intensity and numerous elites in science and technology.

here, the total number of students in the whole school is about 2,, but there are 35 Nobel Prize winners, which is the highest density of Nobel Prize winners in the world. Caltech is the only school among the top private universities in the United States that has not implemented Affirmative action, so the proportion of Asians here is very, very high. I don't want to introduce what Affirmative action is here. Interested students can download it on Wikipedia. However, because Caltech's majors are not very comprehensive, the campus area is very small, and it doesn't care much about the operation and promotion of commercial propaganda, so the comprehensive ranking can't be compared with some Ivy League schools such as "Buddhist College" and "Big Tiger", and the rankings have declined slightly in recent years.

Qian Xuesen, a well-known founder of "two bombs and one satellite" in China, obtained his master's degree from MIT, then transferred to California Institute of Technology to continue his doctoral studies, studied the theory of aviation engineering under the world-famous mechanic Professor von Carmen, and then stayed in school to teach. After returning to the motherland, he became the "father of China's aerospace". At the same time, Caltech is also the actual background of the famous American TV series The Big Bang Theory.

Caltech was originally developed from a vocational school founded by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop in Pasadena in 1891. Before 192, the school was famous for Throop University, Throop Institute of Technology and Throop Institute of Technology. The "power" that drives Caltech from a school of arts and crafts to a world-class science center comes from astronomer George Ellery Hale. He successfully attracted private land and financial support, established and equipped the school with good modern laboratory facilities, and persuaded experimental physicist Millikan to join the California Institute of Technology, laying a solid foundation for Caltech to become the center of science and technology today.

At present, Caltech's departments include: College of Biological Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, College of Geology and Planetary Sciences, College of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, and College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The key disciplines are: physics, followed by engineering, chemistry, biology, aerospace, astronomy and geology. Science is always the only theme of Caltech! There are the most modern laboratories in American universities, the Gai Ke telescope, the world's largest astronomical telescope, and many famous physicists and chemists, all of whom made discoveries that shocked the world at California Institute of Technology. Einstein (a scientist I admired most since I was a child) was here once, giving up the "cosmological invariance theory" he always insisted on and accepting the "cosmological expansion theory" instead; Physicist Carl Anderson found the positive electron here; Richard Fei Erman, the Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, has been teaching for decades and is one of the professors most admired by students.

The school's library system resources are also very rich, including five branches: Millikan Library, Sherman Library, Dabney Library, Astrophysics Library and Geological Planetary Science Library. The Michigan Library and Sherman Library are the two most important ones.

The Beckman Institute, which mainly studies the correlation between biology and chemistry, is named after the chemist Beckman, and was established by the fund he donated. Beckman obtained a postdoctoral degree in chemistry from California Institute of Technology, and once stayed as a professor. He is not only a great chemist, but also a famous industrialist. Beckman Chemical Instrument Company is a big company all over the world. He also invented the PH meter, from which the basic properties of acid and alkali can be quantitatively measured.

There are many buildings named after Beckman on campus, including the landmark building I like very much: Beckman Auditorium.

Caltech's well-known Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was founded by professors and students from the Institute's Aerodynamic Laboratory, and later belonged to NASA. Although it is called a laboratory, it is actually a fairly large space research center, which is super mysterious. JPL not only controls the global deep space exploration network, but also makes measurements and ocean observations on Earth's satellites. In recent years, it has also become the base camp of Mars exploration, and every exploration will set off waves of Mars fever all over the world.

the treasure of Caltech Town School is a cannon with a history of 13 years. At the opening ceremony every year, Caltech usually sounds this cannon. About this cannon, there is also a prank between MIT and Caltech, which has been circulating for many, many years. The two schools have been fighting in secret for a long time. Students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) once pretended to be a moving company, forged documents and cheated the security guards of Caltech, and "cheated" the cannon from the west coast to the east coast. Of course, before MIT's pranks, Caltech students had mixed into MIT, handing out crumpled MIT T-shirt that seemed to be officially issued to visiting students, with the words "MIT" printed on the front and "Because not everyone has the opportunity to go to Caltech" printed on the back, hahaha ~ So there is a particularly interesting phenomenon, no matter you are in the bookstore of Caltech. Or in MIT's bookstore, you will see products printed with the LOGO of the other school, especially T-shirt, but the printed words or patterns are "mutually black". The two famous schools are not only fighting with each other academically, but also playing pranks in a variety of ways.

Here, you can discuss academic issues with your classmates and professors at any place and any occasion, without worrying about whether you will be despised by people around you when you discuss the conditional probability formula of Gaussian process or consult the yoke gradient method when you go shopping in supermarkets or coffee shops. Let's talk about an interesting joke. In order to get to MIT in a cold and deep way, most Caltech students call MIT "the other institute". And then call MIT its own gay friends school. . . Please make up for it by yourselves.

Many students of p>Caltech are Geek or Nerd, so the "unique" students with high IQ like to play and entertain themselves in activities and ways that outsiders can't understand, such as self-made ice slide skating, bread-pulling contest for dinner, liquid nitrogen ice cream, etc. All kinds of wonderful ideas and games have appeared, so I don't want to introduce them more, for fear of scaring many students who like this school.

However, the academic difficulty and curriculum saturation here are extremely high. At the undergraduate stage, the school requires students of any major, even those who study economics or political science, to study at least 5 semesters of mathematics (fractional, linear, ordinary, partial and general), 5 semesters of physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, narrow phase, thermodynamics and quantum), 2 semesters of theoretical chemistry and 12 courses of humanities and social sciences. Therefore, every time students and parents ask me what my undergraduate major is, I always answer half economics, half mathematics and physics. Objectively speaking, every student who graduated from Caltech, no matter what his major is, even if he studies humanities, his academic ability in science is absolutely not inferior to that of students majoring in science and engineering in other schools.

In addition, no matter what major you are, you should complete at least 54 courses in four years, and take about 5 courses each semester. If you are an engineering student, you should basically take at least 65 courses. However, this kind of high-intensity ability training is very effective for my own potential development, and it often makes me see myself from different angles, which is amazing.

It is particularly worth mentioning that Caltech is a place that pays great attention to high trust and honesty, so students can take home exams and do them themselves, and look at their watches and act as invigilators for themselves. One of the Honor Code of Caltech is "No member of the Caltech community shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community." My straightforward translation in Chinese is "Don't take advantage of others".

the motto of California institute of technology is: The truth shall make you free. Strolling around the campus, you can find the unique memories of studying at that time in every corner. Although you have to face great academic pressure every day when you go to school (it is really huge), you can remember yourself, your classmates who have worked hard and the professors who have been actively discussing.

I think it was this precious experience of studying and living in California Institute of Technology that taught me to communicate freely, openly and fully with others, so that my heart was baptized and grown, and I learned and exercised my in-depth and cautious thinking view and logical ability, as well as my personal code of conduct of paying attention to honesty, mutual assistance and respect.