Three years of graduate life is transient like a white horse passing through the crevice. At the snap of my fingers, time has allowed me to grow from an ignorant freshman to a graduate student who has made some progress. Everything in the past three years is like footprints on the beach, distant and clear. When time buried the once deep footprints like a tide, only I knew that many had happened and given me a lot on the traceless beach.

When I listened to my mentor, Prof. Liu Kaiqiang, for the first time, I knew that my master’s career had begun. In the past three years of studying and living in the research group, I have felt the efforts made by Prof. Fang Yu to create a good learning and working environment and atmosphere for everyone, and deeply appreciated the importance of academic platforms to one’s academic career. The group often invites well-known scholars to give lectures, creating many opportunities for our students to stimulate academic ideas and providing a new interactive platform for the smooth progress of research experiments. The hard work of the teachers in the research group, especially Prof. Fang Yu’s decades of diligence and persistence have always infected us, inspiring and motivating me and my mentor to work rigorously and diligently, and we are determined to follow his example in make our unremitting efforts.

Looking back on the three years, I feel a lot of emotions in my heart. I am grateful to my supervisor’s kindness in nurturing me for three years, and I am reluctant to bid farewell to my fellow students. After the thesis defense, I would like to share some of my experiences and feelings about my academic career as a graduate student, hoping to be of some help to younger students.

Based on the research direction determined by my supervisor, I selected the topic for my thesis, after checking the relevant literature in English and Chinese in the past ten years through search engines, reading the abstract, preface and other key parts of the articles, clarifying the research purpose, necessity and importance of each article, grasping the frontier progress of relevant research, and summarizing the academic challenges and difficulties in the field. When I begin to experiment, I usually adopt the hypothesis verification method, i.e., I first put forward a hypothesis, set one or more preliminary plans, and then conduct experimental verification after in-depth discussion with my supervisor, and finally determine the research plan. In the process of experimentation, I record the experimental results and details, draw diagrams and make tables according to the international standard paradigm (mainstream publication style), report the experimental progress by means of monthly group meeting presentations, and actively interact with my supervisor and fellow students to find out the shortcomings and problems in the experimental process, and promptly develop the next phase of exploration goals and experimental plans. In terms of article submission, I first discuss with my supervisor to assess the academic level of the research results, and after determining the target journals, we determine the figures and tables of the article in strict accordance with the layout characteristics of the journals, and improved the readability, novelty, representativeness and logic of the figures and tables. On this basis, I make the first draft of the paper, and revise the manuscript again according to Prof. Liu’s opinions and suggestions until the final submission.

In preparation of the graduation thesis, I followed the principle of thinking ahead and doing things in time, discussed and determined the layout of the chapters of the thesis with Prof. Liu first, then I classified the references, completed the review section, and presented the experimental results in chapters according to the logic and continuity of the research. When I revised the thesis, I expanded the analysis and discussion of the research results. It should be noted that no matter the research paper or the graduation thesis, the diagrams, tables and raw data are strictly corresponding, so that they can be traced back to the source and enhanced or corrected.

As Prof. Liu said, “Scientific research and the process of life can never be smooth sailing. Life gives us helplessness and confusion, we should return it with ten times the courage and persistence.” Therefore, whenever I encounter unsolvable problems in experiments, I will always expose them without any hesitation, and seek help from Prof. Liu and other students, and go through the process of discussion, checking information, re-discussion, experimentation, discussion, re-experimentation, until the problem is finally solved. Whenever important results are obtained, I am full of joy and excitement, but in the meantime, I dare not take it lightly, and would verify whether the results can be repeated in another experiment. When I disagree with Prof. Liu in academic views, I would insist on my own opinion, but in the end, I would calm down first, clarify the truth through data review and knowledge learning, further understand the academic position of the supervisor and the cognitive differences between teachers and students, interact with him again, and express my updated views. When I ever slack off, I would always feel that I am too far from excellent, so I often grit my teeth and try my best to overcome the inertia of young people and strive for more time for learning and experimentation. I was also very frustrated when the editor refused to submit the article for review during the submission process, but when I was encouraged by Prof. Liu with his lively and sincere words, I regained my confidence and further corrected the flaws and shortcomings of the article according to the his requirements.

I am about to graduate, and I plan to continue on the path of scientific research. The past three years of research training has taught me a truth: Academia is another kind of marathon, and we students should have more confidence, more persistence, less laziness and excuses, be grateful and tireless in the quest, learn from past and current research gurus, and strive hard.

I sincerely wish Prof. Fang Yu, Prof. Liu, all teachers and students good health, successful work and study, and also wish the Photonic Nose and Molecular Materials Group, the Institute of New Concept Sensors and Molecular Materials prosperous and brilliant! I will also work tirelessly toward new and greater achievements!