Impressions of My First Year at University

Time flows like water, and years pass like a shuttle. Before I knew it, I had already been in university for a year. The Gaokao is taking place right now, and we are also about to enter finals week, while the new round of RUC’s Strong Foundation Plan exam will also be held in the next two weeks. This, in particular, makes me feel how quickly time has passed. It feels as if the series of things—going to Shijiazhuang to take the preliminary exam, my mom not letting me go swimming when I was in Hong Kong because she was afraid I would get tanned and affect the interview, taking the subway home after finishing the interview in Beijing, and the lush green look of the campus when school had just started, which has now returned with the arrival of summer—happened not long ago.

University life is indeed quite rich and varied, and it is also very different from what I had imagined. Since the application season is just around the corner again, I just want to say this: applying for a major means that you are going to study that major. This may sound like nonsense, but in fact, for the vast majority of high school students, the names of majors are only illusory concepts. For example, law, finance, computer science, electrical engineering—people only know these names, but they do not know what kinds of courses they will have to take if they choose them. The more useful a major is, the more difficult its courses often are. As for some majors where you basically do not need to attend lectures and the homework is basically written by AI, wouldn’t the future jobs in those fields also be easily taken over by AI? Speaking of the AI era, the concept of AI agents is developing very rapidly now, while the vast majority of people are still only using a chatbot, just like before DeepSeek became popular, they seemed to have never heard of those AI software tools. During this year’s Spring Festival Gala, major companies did indeed spend quite a lot of money, making these AI software tools very widespread. But I think AI agents still need some time for development. At the very least, they need to reach the point where any ordinary person without a professional background can use them on a mobile app with zero deployment before they can be widely promoted. Regarding this, if there are Gaokao students or others interested in AI agents, you can visit my personal homepage kerrychia.site in a browser (or click “Read Original” at the very bottom of the article) to get my course.

This year, I have also taken quite a few courses. I have chosen the most interesting single class and the most interesting course:

A single class:

This semester, I chose an elective course on Islamic Culture and Middle Eastern Society. Overall, it was not quite what I had imagined. It talked more about history, which made me slightly disappointed. However, on May 14, we went on a field visit to Dongsi Mosque. I had never heard of this place before, and only after actually going there did I realize that it had such a profound history and various important statuses. For example, the term “Qingzhen” originated from there, and Hu Shih gave his last speech there before going to Taiwan, China. This experience was indeed very interesting. In addition, it happened to be when Trump was visiting China, and I went to Wangfujing on the way, where I encountered his motorcade beside Chang’an Avenue.

A course:

Even I did not expect that the course I would be most interested in would actually be English. University English courses are often looked down upon. We only need three semesters to end our English study during the education stage. University courses are often relatively free, and I have not yet encountered a course where phones are collected. Theoretically speaking, you can look at your phone in all kinds of courses. But English classes are taught in small groups, and usually everyone’s rate of looking up is relatively high. Last semester, I chose a Chinese teacher, and she was quite nice to us. Even after the course ended, she still remembered us and sent us red envelopes in the course group during the Spring Festival. When choosing courses this semester, I hesitated. In the first round, I chose a Chinese teacher but did not get selected. In the second round of course selection, I saw that there were two foreign teachers with relatively few students choosing them, so I should be able to get in. I then searched for reviews of these two teachers on the campus wall and found that this teacher, Alex, seemed quite nice, but he required classroom interaction and gave grades according to the number of times students spoke. I was actually a little timid, after all, I am not someone who likes to take the initiative to speak. But after thinking about it, I decided to burn my boats and use this speaking requirement to force myself to practice my spoken English. From the very beginning, I could feel that he was very humorous. Everyone reported their English name. I said my name was Kerry, and he remembered it as Kery. I then said “double r,” and he deleted the whole thing and changed it to “double r.” The course content is about English-speaking countries, and there are many very interesting things and viewpoints that I am quite willing to discuss. I participated in discussions quite a lot. A few days ago, I saw someone on Douyin post a class where students and the teacher were chatting enthusiastically, and the comments section said that this was what the ideal university should look like. I could not help but think that when we have things we are interested in, we also continue discussing them with him for a little while after class. It can indeed be said to be quite good. In addition, he said that after teaching this semester, he would go back to Canada, to Toronto. Although even if he did not leave, the probability of my choosing his course again would be relatively small, I still feel somewhat sad. I always feel sad about parting. I also added him on WeChat. After thinking about it, it seems that this is the first teacher’s WeChat I have added since entering university. I also added the WeChat accounts of three classmates from the class, which can also be considered a kind of gain. Through multiple mutual sharings, we deepened our understanding of one another. In addition, everyone in the course had to give one presentation. Although my preparation was not very sufficient, I personally felt that the result was still quite successful. So, it is still important to dare to express yourself.