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15 May 2016

I finally decided to what to do after graduation — research in the area of artificial intelligence. It was indeed a surprising decision — even for myself — to jump into research since my previous focus and interest were more on the application side of computer science.

I came up with this “pivoting” less than a month ago, but I was lucky enough to be offered a position at the Human Language Technology Center in HKUST from two professors with scholarship, fully covering my tuition and expenses for two years.

I will be working with Professor Pascale Fung and her research team, primarily focusing on understanding (and making computers understand) human language and emotion. I hope I can add great value to the team.

Among several factors that affected my judgment, the urge to improve my problem-solving ability was the most important. After a thorough review of my past self, I came to a conclusion that the reason for my recent failures in trying to “start something up” was my lack of deep understanding of the core problem. Although 3.5 years of undergraduate education effectively weakened such ability, I fortunately realized my shortcoming after working on different things outside of school.

Deciding to stay at school is counterintuitive in that sense, but I figured doing research is a totally distinctive experience from undergraduate education and will be a valuable experience to focus and deepen my thinking.