Wang Yihong
Fourth-year student, Computer Science and Technology (CST) Programme
Admitted to the Master of Science in Software Engineering programme at Carnegie Mellon University
Yihong received offer letters from two world-renowned institutions -- the Master of Science in Software Engineering programme at Carnegie Mellon University and the Master of Science in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Yihong dreamt of being a scientist and worked hard towards the goal. These offers have acknowledged her hard work and shown that every effort she paid was not in vain.
The offer letter from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University in the US is a top research university, ranked first in the CSRankings. ETH Zurich is one of the top ten universities in the world. It is the Alma mater of scientists Albert Einstein and John von Neumann. Out of her interest, Yihong finally chose Carnegie Mellon University to carry on her further education, located in Silicon Valley.
Four-year journey at UIC
During her four years of study, Yihong keeps her GPA at 3.9 out of 4. She was awarded the President's Honour Award once, First Class Award twice, the UIC Student Internship Scholarship, and the Mr Fung Sun Kwan Scholarship of Excellence.
Yihong was enrolled in Food Science and Technology (FST) Programme in her first year. Unexpectedly, the first UIC biochemistry classes triggered her interest in genetic engineering. Moreover, she was also attracted by the coding in IT class and gained a sense of achievement after finishing a coding task. Yihong then decided to transfer to Computer Science and Technology (CST) Programme in her later college life.
Interest is the best teacher. Soon enough, Yihong had caught up with all the courses and received good grades among classes. Then, during the summer holiday of her junior year, she was recommended by Vice President (Academic) Prof Huang Huaxiong to participate in a research project with the University of Toronto as a research assistant. The experience from this cross-national research project called "Stress Detection based on Facial Images and ECG (Electrocardiography) signals using deep learning", and the recommendation letter from Prof Huang helped Yihong get admitted to Carnegie Mellon University.
In the first semester of her senior year, Yihong used three months to prepare for TOEFL and GRE tests. Then she finished all her application procedures by herself and got the offers. Thanks to the help of Prof Huang as well as Prof Ricky Hou, Prof Zhang Hui, Prof Su Weifeng, etc., from the programme, Yihong could continue her application journey smoothly, which makes her feel extremely lucky.
Be a whole person
From Zhuzhou, Hunan, Yihong's dream of becoming a scientist started in high school. She has always been good at English and even won the first prize in the CCTV city level English contest. She chose UIC because of a former UIC student Ding Yang. Ding Yang gave many compliments about UIC, which inspired Yihong to spend her college at UIC. (Read more: [People of UIC] Meet Ding Yang: Realising his dream with additional programme)
Yihong said that UIC provides an excellent environment to study English and enhance English competence, so one should seize this advantage and not waste it. Therefore, she would go to the English Language Centre (ELC) every week in her first and second years to strengthen her English writing and speaking ability. Additionally, she joined the English debate team initiated by ELC, having two or three hours of training a week.
In the liberal arts education environment, Yihong is not limited to studying her professional field. She minors in business administration courses and dabbles in economics, accounting, human resources, law and other related areas. She also self-studied many online courses, including the open biology course from UC Berkeley and some Java-related courses.
Inspired by many scientists who master multiple languages, Yihong believes languages are essential tools for knowing more about the world and gathering information. So she passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level N2 in her first year and can use Japanese to look for academic references.
Wang Yihong plays the piano on stage
Besides studying, Yihong also has other passions: hosting, piano, dancing, volunteering, etc. She was also the host of some school events.
Yihong learned that there are many migrant workers in Zhongshan and Zhuhai from her sophomore year's Voluntary Service module at the Whole Person Education. So she teamed up with four other fellow students as UICoding to provide coding courses for the pupils in Zhongshan Guinan Primary School.
Wang Yihong (second from the left) volunteered with classmates, opening classes for pupils to study coding
Four years at UIC have been magical and meaningful for Wang Yihong. Where there's a will, there's a way. Yihong has found her way to carry on to her next stage of life.
From MPRO
Reporter: Li Ruifeng
Editors: Deen He, Covee Wang
