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Graduate Interview: Huang Xinyi

PostTime:4/20/2021

This June, the first cohort students will graduate from Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. The series of interviews with the graduates from Class 2021 will show their stories with GTIIT in the past four years.


Here is the story about Huang Xinyi, a student of Class 2021 from Chemical Engineering Program.


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Name: Huang Xinyi

High school: No.16 Middle School, Guangzhou

Program: Chemical Engineering


When choosing a university after the college entrance examination, those located near Huang Xinyi’s hometown became her main consideration because it was the first time that she lived in a new city independently. "Although I have never been to Shantou before, I have heard about the delicious food and beautiful scenery of this coastal city and I want to have a look by myself. What’s more, Shantou is close to my hometown, which brings me great sense of security." 


Later, Huang Xinyi also learned that students at GTIIT would be in an English teaching environment and learn from teachers with rich research experience. Most important, GTIIT students can receive world-class teaching from Israel Institute of Technology, the world-renowned science and technology institution without going abroad. "For me, studying at GTIIT is a cost-effective choice."


Grow quickly outside the comfort zone

Huang Xinyi said that she became brave after studying at GTIIT and that was the most obvious change on her. "In the preparatory semester, I never raised my hand to ask questions, let alone answered questions in class. I was afraid of making mistakes. However, our professors encouraged us to ask questions and said that 'there is no such thing as a stupid question, but if one does not ask questions and seek answers, one will remain stupid'. That inspired me a lot." The open and active atmosphere in class, as well as students’ enthusiasm and positive attitude towards study and life have influenced Huang Xinyi imperceptibly. "My peers raise their hands in class actively and they are praised by professors. They also express their needs and opinions on issues such as studying abroad and career development. Students are encouraged to find and ask questions at GTIIT. This environment makes me realize that fear and shyness are unnecessary."


During her four years at GTIIT, Huang Xinyi has been breaking through her comfort zone and turning setbacks into more determined steps forward. "In the first semester of my senior year, the Chemical Engineering Program had a very busy course arrangement due to the pandemic situation. We have six courses, two experiments and a senior project. Moreover, I had to prepare all kinds of application documents for postgraduate study at the same time. I still made no progress in the senior project towards the end of the term, which frustrated me a lot."


In the Senior Project 1, Huang Xinyi chose a topic that she was very interested in -- the removal of antibiotics in water by using the optimized electro Fenton system. “I was full of expectations before the project, but during the experiment, I encountered a lot of difficulties - How to choose an antibiotic? How to measure the concentration of antibiotics? How to measure the iron concentration in a solution? How to acidify cathode material? How to conduct adsorption experiments? How to conduct the electro Fenton experiment? One problem after another could not be solved, which made it difficult for me to continue the experiment. I spent the whole semester in finding problems and solving problems. I even doubted whether I had the ability to do scientific research at that time.


Later, on my Senior Project 2, although I still wanted to continue the previous project, I preferred to learn from a mature, complete and systematic scientific research experiment. Therefore, I changed my research topic to the one that was doing by my senior. This time, I realized what a truly planned experiment was like and I really learn a lot from that. After suffering a series of failures, and after completing the Senior Project 1 while taking many courses, I felt that nothing could beat me!"


When it comes to the experiences at GTIIT, Huang Xinyi is full of gratitude. "Thanks to the guidance of my teacher, I could have a relatively accurate positioning of myself and wrote a good personal statement when preparing documents for applying universities. I would like to express my gratitude to my seniors who always helped me when my project experiment failed repeatedly even though they were very busy. I also want to thank my roommates who always listened to me when I was overwhelmed with schoolwork, research and applications. Thanks to all the people who encouraged me to get through the difficult time. Thank you and thank GTIIT!"


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Enjoy the charm of chemistry

In Huang Xinyi's view, chemical engineering is a program with a wide range of applications and high compatibility, involving materials, biology, environment, food, new energy, medicine, physics, fluid mechanics, programming and many other knowledge. It is seen as the central discipline at the crossroads of natural science.


In February 2021, Huang Xinyi participated in GTIIT Students Open Day-Research Opportunities, where she felt the charm of ideas exchange from the research sharing between professors and students.


"I was very interested in a graduate student's research project, which used computer to simulate the kinetic models of chemical reactions. Prof. Kong Bo has introduced his research experience of computer simulation of multiphase flow reaction model to us. Through his introduction, I was deeply impressed by the charm of computer simulation model, which not only has high reliability in some mature fields, such as single-phase flow reaction, but also can save a lot of experimental costs. In contrast, Dr. Michail said that the beauty of chemistry was that you would never know what was going to happen. Uncontrollable variables in each reaction can make a big difference. It's like Schrodinger's cat. You never know what's going to happen unless you've done it yourself in the lab. "The discussion is very interesting and makes me think seriously about how we should think about the emerging interdisciplinary research."


During the four years' study at GTIIT, Huang Xinyi has witnessed the teachers’ enthusiasm and pursuit of their academic fields and turned them into a driving force to push herself forward. "Prof. Israel Gutter loves teaching very much. He shows me that people are crazy when it comes to what they really love, and also lets me know what a scholar is like. He often immerses himself in his lectures and answers our questions carefully and comprehensively, to make sure that we understand what he said. In the first class about Matlab, he adopted our usual habits and logic to interact with Matlab, treating it as a person and asking it to calculate the required answers. When Matlab could not understand English, he pointed to the computer and said "Matlab is so stupid", which made us laugh and relaxed. Then he taught us to learn the language and logic that Matlab could understand in a simple way to make the deep knowledge become easy to understand."


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Huang Xinyi (left) with her friend


Realize my dream at GTIIT

After receiving offers from EPFL, University College London, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Manchester, Huang Xinyi decided to accept EPFL’s offer of a research program in chemical engineering and biotechnology. "This is something I never dreamed of before I came to GTIIT!"


The experience of applying for EPFL made Huang Xinyi deeply understand the advantage of the curriculum of GTIIT, which emphasizes the solid foundation on science and engineering. "As far as I know, one of the requirements in Europe universities for master degree’s applicants is that there is a high degree of match between undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and there is less acceptance of students who apply across disciplines. Although the Chemical Engineering Program at GTIIT incline to environment engineering, its curriculum contains biology-related contents, which can match the requirements of European universities."


According to Huang Xinyi, the most important thing in applying for graduate school is to choose the one that suits you. "When you are selecting a university, ask yourself whether you want to study there if you get the offer. You need to know whether the university can attract you, and whether it is helpful for your future development.”


Huang Xinyi said she chose EPFL because of her plan for the future. "I think the European educational system is more suitable for me -- one year for teaching, one semester for internship and one semester for Master Project. I have been deeply influenced by GTIIT’s concept of focusing on the knowledge foundations. I hope that I can fully acquire the whole body of knowledge foundations, and then decide whether to pursue further study for a doctorate degree or to start my career in engineering industry in the future. A semester for internship and a semester for project may enable me to figure out what I want in a relatively short time and make a correct choice."


"Teachers at GTIIT helped me a lot in my application for postgraduate studies. The first version of my personal statement was based on an outline provided by the education agency. I simply listed the courses I had taken, the research projects and extracurricular activities I had participated in. It was not until I talked with Dr. Chen Fen from GTIIT Career Development Center that I realized that what the admissions officers wanted to see was not my biography, but my unique and specific case to show my research potential and passion for the program. "I spent more than a month thinking about my experiences over the past four years and revising my personal statement several times before I finally came up with a personal statement, which helped me a lot in my application."


To do everything seriously and efficiently, to find a career that suits me and deserve my hard work, and to be a good person to the society- the goal will encourage Huang Xinyi to pursue her challenging and prosperous future.


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Huang Xinyi participated in the STU Spring Festival gala show



Text: GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos: Huang Xinyi, GTIIT News & Public Affairs


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