Words for Graduation
TL;DR: I’ll graduate from Radboud University with an MSc in Behavioural Science and will go to the University of Groningen for my PhD. Many thanks!
So first of all, let me repeat the most important milestone for me this summer: I’ll graduate from Radboud University with an MSc in Behavioural Science (cum laude). And this September, I’ll start my PhD at the group leading by Prof. Anna Lichtwarck-Aschoff. Congratulations to myself : )
I’m a person that tends to write a lot whenever I pick up my keyboard, especially at the important, ritual times in my life. If you don’t know this feature of mine, it’s usually because I primarily write in my mother language, but this time I, of course, have many good reasons to step out a little from my comfort zone. Coincidentally, I didn’t have a chance to write an acknowledgment part for either my Bachelor’s or my Master’s thesis. The former was because a Bachelor’s thesis was not required by the college of chemistry and I already decided to do psychology at that time; and the latter was because the Master’s thesis should be APA, where there is not a lot of room for me. I feel really jealous when others can post their acknowledgments on social media, but luckily there’s no rule stating an acknowledgment should always go with a thesis. So here comes this post, which I want to serve as a short summary of my life in Nijmegen in the past two years, as well as an opportunity to say thanks to the people who supported me a lot.
Honestly speaking, when I accepted the admission from Radboud, I was not fully sure if the journey to the Netherlands would be a correct choice. That suspicion reached its peak when I was noticed my scholarship application was not considered by the committee due to some administrative mistakes. After a long flight, I arrived in Amsterdam on an August afternoon. That was my first time abroad. As a result, everything around looks strange and I immediately found starting to speak real-life practical-oriented spoken English with a live human being who understands no Chinese was much more difficult than taking a TOEFL. After a short fight-or-flight-or-frozen period, I decided to ask a madam at NS for help. As the first very kind person in this story, she helped me with getting an OV card and clearly explained how to take a train to Nijmegen. There were many people in the train so I could only put my baggage in the aisle – and I forgot to move them to a better place after the madam sitting across from me got off in Arnhem. That caused a little quarreling between me and a man coming from another cabin. I didn’t really know who he was and couldn’t really understand him. Luckily several people in the cabin helped me out – they said something (based on my guess from several Dutch words I knew) like all of us in this cabin are okay with him and why are you getting so angry here. That man left after that and a girl said to me don’t worry about that. I don’t expect everyone in a new country are friendly, but from the experience of my first day in the Netherlands, I got the expression that the vast majority of people there were friendly and helpful.
This primary conclusion was confirmed later. I met many nice people after that, including Junlei who picked me up at the train station, Chinese students and scholars who organized nice intro activities for us, Leander, Marian, and João who lead our group around during the intro for internationals, and also the Maizena team who organized the intro for new BSRM students. Culture shocks mainly occurred on things related to alcohol and Netflix, which I’m not really into but people here all like. Apart from that, I do feel I quite like the general personality of Dutch guys. After some real-life English practice, daily chats become enjoyable. (My A1 Dutch level is not really enough for a meaningful conversation yet…) BSRM guys, BSI teachers are very nice persons and possess great interests and competency in doing research. And of course, the winter gala and the trip to Efteling were some most joyful memories of my master’s life. I also knew many Chinese students at Radboud: Kun, Junfei, Junyuan, Zilong, Kexin … Being far from my home country, having dinners and chats with you are just relieving my loneliness, nostalgia, and my Chinese stomach (which complained a lot to me about Dutch food…).
The minor project in the first year was not totally smooth, but it ended up well. Noëlle, my teammate for the minor. She is one of the strongest people I have ever met. (In the sense of strong will, although she also does pole dance really well.) Our daily supervisors, Thabo and Sanne, gave me very helpful input and feedback during meetings and later writing-up parts. The experience with them gave me a first taste of how doing research is like in the Netherlands. And that experience also showed me things can work out even it seems difficult at first.
Then, in my major project, I met my amazing supervision team, Anna, Fred, Merlijn, and Prof. Li (Some cultural differences in addressing people here XD). I still remember the “fateful” first major meeting with Anna, which was on the last day before universities were closed. I also got the chance to meet Merlijn and Fred before lockdown. These face-to-face meetings gave some physical basis for the later Zoom-supported project. Having Prof. Li on the team was another beautiful coincidence – I happened to find some mathematical papers we need are from Peking University, which is like my academic hometown. No reason could I miss that chance of reaching out. Throughout the major project, my supervisors were always helpful, intellectual, and supportive. I chose a “risky” project for my major, which later became exciting and challenging. With their help, I finally made the first part of my crazy idea come true. I very much look forward to diving more into this field in the following 4 years. I hope my major project can somehow contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of human minds.
There are also many important people outside the Netherlands that I would like to acknowledge. My liefste HM. We’ve been mostly in different countries, but the distance never weakens our love. I wrote our story of the past two years in a BDWM post (in Chinese; Google translation can recover the basic idea but doesn’t work well for slang. Sorry for that -_-||). And also my parents and other family members, who are always caring about me. Thank you and love you.
I also want to thank my charming network. Shuai Yuan helped me with my master’s application and encouraged me to go to the Netherlands; from the social media of Zhuoran Qiao and Chang Wang, I got acquainted with the complex system research and the idea of generalized potential landscape. Thanks to the age of internet, I can still chat with my Chinese friends even I’m thousands of kilometers away. It’s nice to have you with me. Reading novels also helped me kill much boring time, so here also many thanks to the authors of those works; ) So many people have helped me a lot during the past two years. I have tried my best but probably still missed some names. If that happens, sorry for my (according to some papers) already declining memory, and thank you as well!
Looking back to the past two years, I’ve grown a lot. The most obvious aspects including spoken English and survivability in the Netherlands. And more importantly, my knowledge and mindset. I’m braver than ever to face new challenges and embrace a new life. The next part of my story will start soon. I just moved from Nijmegen to Groningen, a beautiful city in the northern Netherlands. What will happen then? I’m curious to find out : )
That’s all for now. Tot ziens!