My second semester just came to its end. I have been at CSU for 10 months. It is a good time to summarize what I have done in the past academic year, identify what I could have done better and those good habits that I should keep. I also would like to make a plan for the following summer and my next academic year.
What I have done since my arrival at CSU (10 months)
- I had a full paper accepted by GECCO’2012, another paper submitted to PPSN’2012. Both of them are leading conferences in the area of Evolutionary Computation. The GECCO’2012 paper received pretty good feedback. Two out of five reviewers recommended our paper for the best paper award. Considering the fact that I have been heavily involved with course study. This result isn’t too shabby.
- I received 24 credits by Course Study. The past two semesters are tough for sure. Yet if I didn’t push myself in the hard way, I would never know I could make it.
- During the middle of October 2011, I returned to China and attended the Challenge Cup Competition of Science Achievement in China. I was eventually awarded the first price, and travelling for about 60 hours was paid off.
What I should have done
- Stop Procrastination. It is essentially about time management. Our time should always be spend on the most important tasks. If we have some critical tasks, then we should start to work on them right now without any excuse. Don’t let trivial stuffs like checking deals/facebook/QQ/email/BBS stop yourself from achieving some remarkable. Do remember that I should only check the above trivial stuffs only once a day for half an hour at most (21:30~22:0). BBS (including USTC BBS and MITBBS) doesn’t even need to be checked on a daily basis.
- More communication with my fellow students. Establishing connections is important not only for businessmen/politicians, but also for scientists/engineers. Try to say hello to everyone I met with a nice smile.
Goal for Summer
- Submit a journal to TEC on Large-scale optimization (The most important mission)
- Maintain the connection with NICAL
- It appears that CCVIL is attracting quite some people. It does have some good potential of being an influential work in the area of Evolutionary Computation.
- Draw a nice conclusion to my Undergraduate’s work
- A TEC paper would be an outstanding item in my CV when looking for academic position.
- Submit to journal to Evolutionary Computation/Physical Review E on Walsh Local Search
- Prepare for a conference paper on MaxSAT, might be submitted to FOGA 2013 (due August 1)/LION 2013 (due October 14).
- Master Emacs
- Work out regularly for good health
How to achieve the goals
- Develop a stable and regular living habit
- Get up @ 6:30
- Breakfast home @7
- Library for working 7~11
- Lunch and coffee, Emacs @ 11~12
- work @ 12~16
- work out at GYM bringing laptop with me. @16-17
- dinner, emacs @17~18
- work @18~22
work out at GYM bringing laptop with me. @21~22- go home, have some fun reading @22~23
- sleep @23