从高考失误到哈佛博士

生活是一场长跑，在行将就木之前，任何时刻所取得的成功都只是下一阶段的起点。有人因为一时的成功而裹足不前，比如中国各省历年的高考的状元，在后来取得显着成就的，你能说出几个人的名字来？有人面对眼前的厄运平淡对待、奋起直追、后来居上，比如Hao Wu，他曾经就读的华东师范大学和纽约州立大学石溪分校并不算院校，但他后来让普林斯顿大学刮目相看。

四川大学的一个男生曾深深打动过我。“我的求学经历并非一帆风顺。我曾就读于成都七中，一贯成绩优异。按照常理，毕业后进入北京大学学习并在研究生阶段赴美留学，几乎是顺理成章的事情。但是，由于家人突遭变故等客观原因的影响，导致我未能在高考中发挥应有的水平，于是与北京大学失之交臂，来到了并非自己梦想学校的四川大学。我和有着类似经历的同辈们都面临艰难的选择，将目标定于更为现实的就业，或是坚持自己初的理想，完成本科学业以后在名校中继续研究生阶段的学习。我选择了后者，为此我通过层层选拔进入了四川大学吴玉章学院。

在大学里我更加努力，凭着优异的成绩，我得到了去新加坡国立大学交换学习一年的机会。在新加坡的一年大大开拓了我的眼界，不论是学术上还是人生观方面。在Yatracos教授的指导下，我参加了数学建模竞赛，并写了一篇论文。

回国以后，我在几位教授的指导下完成了一些较为基础但也颇具意义的研究工作。从中我不仅感受到统计、不确定性理论及其应用在现代科学领域的重要地位，也从中汲取了研究经验，体验到了科学研究的乐趣，更加坚定了毕业以后继续研究生阶段的学习的愿望。

李波(化名)满怀感慨地陈述着他的过去。成都七中是一所百年名校，是北大、清华等着名高校在西南地区的重要生源基地，每年考入北大和清华两校的人数占这两所大学在四川招生人数的1/4左右，占在成都市招生人数的近1/2。

一向名列前茅的李波从成都七中考到四川大学，在心理上肯定会有很大的失落感。但他还是踏踏实实地走着学术道路，终获得了哈佛大学和加州理工学院(California Institute of Technology)的博士全额奖学金。

李波曾经用来申请哈佛大学的个人陈述(Personal Statement)非常专业、漂亮，我一直保留着作为勉励学生的范本，希望每一个有志去哈佛的学生能够领悟到“”的涵义：

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” explored the interconnection of mankind, that all of mankind’s destinies are tied together, that we are all one and the same. Whatever I do will have an effect on others but that one has to learn to stand alone before he can stand with others. This struck a chord with me and I have taken it to heart as my motto in the way I live my life. My family and my community are my constant touchstones in my quest to find my full potential, pushing me to do my best in all my endeavors.My interest in the field of mathematics was cultivated in the thick academic atmosphere formed by the family members most of whom took up research work. 

I am convinced that scientific beliefs may be due to the persistent and objective truth, and think that in large part, is based on mathematics. Therefore, the choice of learning mathematics in pursuit of my belief logically follows it. In my view, the function of mathematics in the world is achieved through application. 

My love for mathematics began at a young age, during which I found it fascinating in all its richness and complexity. I attached great importance to it encouraged myself to explore it further and strive to fully achieve my potential. I excelled at mathematics in my primary and high school years, winning awards in various competitions and other extracurricular activities, capping my early years of study with a superb academic record. 

As time went on, I started to ponder two questions: what problems are actually studied by math, the way to solve them,?and how does?math work to?serve our lives.I chose pure math as my undergraduate major, because I think I need to know more to answer the first question and now I have decided to plunge into the field of statistics and operation research, because I want to find an answer to the second one. The more I study math, the more I feel that it has become the most reliable tool for human beings to cognize and analyze the world, which is always truthful to us as long as we are truthful. Borrowing a term in statistics, it has already become our “null hypothesis” for the real world.

Speaking of analyzing the world, mathematics is not full-fledged in its application. In this field, a very important issue is that most of the research done is driven by the existent literature while not the true source where statistics and applied math were born-practical problems in life. In a word, instead of seeking problems and creating paper from the papers of the pioneers in the field, I believe it is more important to look at the practical problem itself and extract what we need from the vast sea of all the mathematical knowledge to make our own way to the best solution. 

This is what I am looking to do for my graduate study.As for the preparation, I injected great enthusiasm in the field of mathematics modeling. I received my first award in mathematics modeling, when I was in high school. After entering the university, I participated in the MCM and led my team to the outstanding award. As captain of the team, I was mainly responsible for the model building and the writing of the original version of the paper. It was in this process that I gained valuable experience of solving practical problems and strongly felt that the use of statistical methods and operations research had a tremendous role to play to solve real world problems, which also further cemented my resolve to pursue advanced studies in statistics and operations research.My undergraduate advisor Prof. Luo is now doing research on how to use theories of uncertainty to solve practical problems. 

I am very interested in it and have already started to go deeper into this area under his direction. As we all know the statistics studies uncertainty, randomness and variability, while the uncertainty theory contains not just what statistics focuses on. In my opinion, fuzzy mathematics, and other branches of uncertainty theory can also become as mature as the statistics to address practical problems. I am very interested in the different starting points, means and effects of fuzzy mathematics and statistics in solving the same problems. 

Thus, I dedicated my