＂Hundred Projects＂ has enabled thousands of Nankai students to embark on the road of scientific research and innovation.
Entering the laboratory, doing projects and doing research seem to be words related to graduate students, which are closely connected with undergraduates in Nankai University. The "Hundred Projects" started in 2002 is an innovative fund set up by Nankai University to encourage undergraduates to choose their own topics for scientific research. The annual expenditure is 1 million yuan.
Now, five sessions have passed, and the school has invested five 1 million yuan. What is the result?
Visible gains are intuitively displayed in a set of figures: from the initial 77 projects with more than 300 students participating, to the fifth 259 projects with nearly 1200 students participating; Over the past five years, more than 2,500 students have participated directly, and 173 papers have been published in various academic journals, including Journal of the American Chemical Society and Journal of the American Optical Society. Among the published papers, students have published more than 90 papers as the first author, and nearly 60 patents are being applied for.
These figures are enough to prove the achievements of the "100 projects", but not enough to prove all the gains.
"Millions of funds are sowing the seeds of innovation." Xue Jinwen, secretary of the Party Committee of Nankai University, described it poetically: "What we value most is not what kind of flowers these seeds produce, but how they sprout. Maybe some people fail and some people succeed, but we believe that everyone can get something from it. "
"Hundred Projects" Let us ask questions to the society.
Dai Qiang is an undergraduate of 2003 in the Department of Sociology of Nankai University. In his sophomore year, he chatted with his classmates after class, and everyone’s topic focused on the social views on college students’ sexual concepts. Many students think that the sex survey about students rarely comes from the students themselves and is unconvincing.
At that time, the school just issued the notice to start the third "100 projects", and Dai Qiang suggested applying for the project on this topic, which was immediately approved by the students.
At that time, there were three students, two studying sociology and one studying political science. Considering their comprehensive majors, Dai Qiang invited another student studying law to participate. Later, a girl from the medical department of our school joined the team.
After strict examination, the project was successfully established, and they got a project fund of 2300 yuan, but the real difficulty of this project lies in the investigation itself. Although sex is no longer taboo, most students still want to talk about it. Put the questionnaire in a sealed envelope, and then seal it after the respondents fill it out; Thirty or forty in-depth interviewers were introduced by classmates in order to be more confidential-these methods were all special investigation methods they came up with.
"One of our purposes at that time was to comprehensively apply what we had learned in sociology and psychology, and the other was to be interested in this issue." Dai Qiang said.
Their research results, titled "We are cautious about sex", were first reported by China Youth Daily, which caused a strong response and was reprinted by many websites. A netizen left a message in the thread: "From the survey, nearly 60% of college students’ can’t accept’ or’ try to avoid’ premarital sex, because it is the students’ own survey, which should be true."
Projects formed from questioning like this have accounted for a large part since the first session. A classmate who applied for the third "Hundred Projects" at the same time with Dai Qiang, who lives in Chongqing, saw many problems in the relocation of his hometown ancient town and made an investigation from the perspective of anthropology.
"A Preliminary Study on the Intermediary Organizations of Rural Land Transfer in China", "Education of Children of Floating Population" and "Civil Prosecution of State-owned Assets" are among thousands of projects from the first to the fifth session, and the topics that students have doubts about involve various aspects such as law, economy, society and education.
Dong Qianqian is a sophomore in the School of Chinese as a Foreign Language of Nankai University. She and her classmates made a survey on the cultural differences between Chinese and Japanese youths and won the second prize of "100 Projects", but she felt that winning the prize was not the biggest gain.
For this investigation, Dong Qianqian and the students of the project team taught themselves sociological investigation methods and used almost all the resources available for investigation. After the data came out, they were very shocked: "For example, we surveyed nearly 400 Japanese students and found that no Japanese boy would take living expenses from home when he was a sophomore, and he could stand on his own feet completely. Japanese university graduates don’t care about stable jobs, but only ask for free time. "
"Through the investigation, I feel that Chinese and Japanese youths are converging and influenced by western culture, but they have kept their own national characteristics more." She said that this conclusion is quite different from her and her classmates’ initial impression of Japanese youth.
Because the instructor was not satisfied with their conclusions and thought that there was no depth, the project team continued to study and began to write a paper to be published. "It is very strange for high school students studying in other universities to hear that I am doing research." Dong Qianqian said that after this training, she will know what to do first and then what to do.
"The biggest gain is the sense of cooperation"
In the long list of five "Hundred Projects", from the influence of network on teenagers to the psychology of empty nesters, from the happiness index of urban residents to rural cooperative medical care, from the comprehensive treatment of wastewater to the synthesis of nano-ceramics, the problems studied by Nankai students are not only extensive, but also many interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary topics. In the column of members indicated at the back of the project, many projects are "allied forces": law school and environmental science college, chemistry college and biological science college, business college and literature college-
Mu Hong is a 2002 undergraduate in Medical College. A study on pesticide toxicity with his classmates won the first prize of the third "Hundred Projects". After determining this topic at the beginning, through literature review, they found that this is a cross-disciplinary and cross-professional research, which was not available in China before, and there were not many in the world.
In this undergraduate team, five students are from Environmental Science College, Chemical College and Medical College. Mu Hong said that after the team established the project, the teacher only played a guiding role, and the specific research ideas were determined by the students themselves.
In order to do this research, Mu Hong and others searched many environmental documents and determined field animals (earthworms) and mammals (mice) as the research objects. The laboratory workload of this study is very heavy, and a lot of knowledge of anatomy, physiology and biochemistry is also used, and 100 mice are used alone.
They went to the suburbs of Tianjin to buy earthworms. People know that they are doing pesticide research, so they support many earthworms for free.
"We feel that the biggest gain is to exercise the ability of cooperation and communication." Mu Hong said that students from different majors together not only complement each other in knowledge, but also integrate different ideas. "It is very important to be able to communicate with different fields and people to accomplish one thing."
After the project, they put their articles into core journals. After communicating with the editorial department for many times, Mu Hong said that he had got another exercise.
"Fair and fair, changing with each passing day" is the motto of Nankai School put forward by Zhang Boling, the founder and great educator of Nankai School in 1934. "Public" means selflessness and selflessness, while "ability" means hard work.
A classmate said, "Having participated in the’ Hundred Projects’, I have a new understanding of the school motto. In addition to innovation and responsibility, another important requirement in’ energy’ is communication and cooperation. "
And the best of these "100 projects" soon emerged in the country. In the recent three "Challenge Cup" China University Students’ Extracurricular Academic and Scientific Works Competition, two undergraduates of Nankai University won the special prize. In the last two "Challenge Cup" business plan competitions, Nankai undergraduate team won the gold medal twice …
Of course, the "Hundred Projects" is not just to encourage students to send papers. Being able to "innovate" is the first principle. The students of grade 2004 in the College of Physics improved a set of experimental equipment, which has been applied in the Physics Experimental Center and applied for utility model patents. This topic also won the funding and awards of "100 Projects".
Setting topics and conducting research, a completely postgraduate learning style, attracts not only China students. The international legion also joined in.
Fu Xinxin, who speaks fluent Chinese and a few words of Tianjin dialect, is from Germany. She cooperated with China and Japanese students on the topic "The History and Present Situation of Foreign Students in Tianjin". In order to complete this project, they consulted the historical materials of eight universities and several archives libraries in Tianjin, and distributed questionnaires to international students from more than 60 countries, and finally formed a research report and four papers.
"100 projects" helped me knock on the door of famous schools and enterprises
Zhang Kang, a 2003 undergraduate student of the College of Physics, was admitted to Johns Hopkins University this year. There, he will study for a doctorate in electronic engineering. The enrollment handbook of this prestigious school reads: "When we enroll graduate students, the first thing we value is that the applicant has participated in an excellent undergraduate research project, followed by various test results."
Zhang Kang and his classmates won the fourth "Hundred Projects" special prize for their research on rare earth ion luminescence.
Different from other undergraduates, Zhang Kang didn’t enter the laboratory because of "100 projects". Professor Song Feng from Photonics Center is a professional teacher of Zhang Kang’s freshman year. Zhang Kang was interested in his research direction, so he entered Teacher Song’s laboratory as a handyman in his sophomore year, and got acquainted with his senior brothers and sisters.
After a semester, Zhang Kang took two classmates who were also interested in optics to set up a research group, and declared the "Hundred Projects". Rare-earth luminescent materials have been industrialized at present, but Zhang Kang’s team is focusing on a theoretical direction. They not only discovered a new three-photon indirect sensitized luminescence process for the first time in experiments, but also established a new theoretical model to explain it. This achievement was published in OpticsExpress, an important journal in the field of optics. Since entering the laboratory for two years, Zhang Kang has published three SCI articles and two EI articles.
For more than two years, Zhang Kang has spent weekends and holidays in the laboratory. He said that the biggest gain of the "Hundred Projects" was that he learned how to do research, including finding the frontier, choosing the topic, and looking up information.
The four students of Muhong’s research group were all admitted to foreign universities. There are not a few students who are interested in a certain direction because of the topic of "100 Projects" and choose the future research direction again.
Dai Qiang, who did a sex survey, has been admitted by a famous IT company in Shenzhen. During the interview, the examiner once asked Dai Qiang to tell a story that could reflect his organizational ability at the university level. Dai Qiang talked about the project of sex investigation. "This is very helpful for my job search." Dai Qiang said that other students have the same experience.
"From my four years’ experience in college, the number of students participating in the’ 100 Projects’ has soared, because they have all seen the benefits brought by this extracurricular activity." Mu Hong, who is about to leave for Edinburgh University, said that he was grateful to the school. The "Hundred Projects" made Nankai students "have as big a stage as their hearts". (Xie Xiang Li Xinling)
Editor: Zhang Pengfei