In Sweden, a master’s degree takes two years, and I’ve already made it through the first one. Looking back, the time really has flown by. It feels like it wasn’t that long ago that I had just finished my undergraduate thesis, and now, in the second half of this year, I’ll be facing my master’s degree project.
One thing that’s different here compared with China is that the European master’s system is not mainly about following a supervisor into research, working on a project, and publishing papers. It is a taught master’s program. In plain terms, you go to class, finish assignments inside and outside class, and most of the time you work on projects. It has definitely improved my ability to learn independently.
I actually think the two-year master’s in Europe is not really designed to train people for research. What it does train is self-directed learning and the habit of thinking proactively. There are so many times when, after class, I still don’t really understand what the teacher was trying to say, or what exactly the assignment is asking me to do. If I ask other international students, most of them are just as confused, and the answer is usually something like, “I have no idea about that...” But somehow, by the deadline, everyone still manages to hand things in and explain their work in a way that makes sense. That means the real work is done after class, on your own. No wonder so many teachers say you’d better come to class, though not coming is apparently also fine. Either way, the work after class matters a lot.
That also makes the usual four- or five-year PhD here easier to understand. During the master’s, most people simply do not have much experience with research or publishing papers. From what I’ve seen, local students mostly study when they should study and play when they should play. They don’t seem to spend every spare moment reading or self-studying the way many students from China do, constantly keeping themselves busy. I’m definitely one of those people...
The PhD stage, then, becomes the real shift toward research, hard work, and staying buried in a project for a long time. A longer period actually gives people enough time to settle into research, and when you think about it, that does make sense.
But back to the present: the first thing I need to do now is find a topic for my degree project. And this part is different too. In China, you usually follow your supervisor’s topic and do a related piece of work. Here, you have to find the topic yourself—through a company, or by finding something online that you want to work on—and then discuss it with a teacher before it is confirmed. That creates a real risk: you might not find a thesis topic in time and end up delaying graduation, or you might start something related, get halfway through, and realize it can’t be done, so you have to change direction. That would be pretty frustrating.
Yesterday I asked an older student from Harbin Institute of Technology who came here, and he told me I should start looking for my degree project now. My reaction, inside, was basically collapse and refusal. I’m the kind of person who, if I know from the beginning what needs to be done, will still start worrying right away. Not necessarily because it’s urgent, but because I will be nervous from day one. And once that happens, every minute of the day gets occupied by thinking about it, even when there is nothing I can do yet.
The most typical example was a course in my first year that required a final report. The moment the teacher announced the task in the very first class, I started panicking and thinking, What should I do? What should I do? Almost all of my spare time was spent thinking about it, and it was honestly exhausting. But in the end, I still completed the task and got an A.
Things like that have happened more than once, and I’ve slowly understood something: sometimes the completion of a task happens almost naturally. Of course that doesn’t mean you just drift through life and wait for things to solve themselves. It means keeping a steady pace, doing things carefully step by step.
That reminds me of a piece of advice from a self-help book about avoiding anxiety: treat each day like one carriage of a train. Live one day at a time, and once the day is over, close the door between that carriage and the next. Don’t let what happened in the past, or what hasn’t happened yet in the future, disturb your thoughts today. Of course, that doesn’t mean ignoring everything completely. It means arranging things in an orderly way and planning ahead so those worries don’t take over.
I’m not quoting the book word for word, and I’m too lazy to go dig it out and cite it properly. It’s just my own understanding after reading it and then thinking about it in real life. My memory is bad anyway, so how could I possibly remember the exact wording? I still think reading is better when you really feel it, instead of memorizing it mechanically. That’s probably why I don’t remember ancient poems very well either. Yeah.
So I think there’s a lot of wisdom in sayings like, “A way will be found when you reach the mountain, and the boat will naturally go straight when it gets to the bridge.” In the process, there’s no need to be overly careful about everything, but there’s also no point in drifting through the days in a fog. Just keep a steady rhythm, move forward step by step, and things will usually come together when the time is right. There’s no need to worry too much at the very beginning.
But there is one important condition: you still have to care.
So, for the degree project, I’ll take it step by step.
For the PhD, I’ll take it step by step.
For the project starting this semester, and all the other small things on the list, I’ll take them step by step too.
(Oh man, there are so many things. I’m tired already -.-|||...)