Wednesday, Professor Dan Schwarz talked about his advise on how to succeed in college. As a junior transfer student from China, although I do not have the experience of freshman year and sophomore year at Cornell, I still found some of the overall advice he gave to students are valuable.

One thing he mentioned is to try new things. We should be brave in our lives and be open to new experiences. In college, we may have many concerns such as graduation requirements, high GPA and internship background. But those things should not be the barriers preventing us from trying new things. Take courses out of your major, go for an amazing trip and enjoy yourself.

He also recommended that three categories of classes,which are useful, should be taken- humanity, economics and computers. I think I should take a Matlab course or R language course next semester as it is very important skill to deal with data.

What I am particularly interested in is the advice on doing research for undergraduate student. He stated the benefits from doing undergraduate research should be the ability of conducting independent study and thinking independently. There are several ways to seek research opportunities for undergraduate students. The courses you are taking, your advisor and professors you know are good resources. By the way, I think Prof.Garrick is very kind and can offer help.