Do you still remember what you were doing at age 16? You had to deal with the daily demands of schoolwork, as well as the many problems of adolescence. You also faced other important, but not-so-urgent, questions. What did you want to study when you would go off to university in a few years? How should you plan your academic journey, and explore your inner self?

We recently talked with the YWIES graduate, Debby, about her learning experiences and development. Faced with the eternal dilemmas that everyone has gone through, she experienced confusion and inner turmoil. But she found her answers, and achieved satisfactory results.

Reflecting on her YWIES learning experiences, Debby expressed the same ideas. Even though she had not known each other previously, she believes that the learning experiences unrelated to university applications were precisely the key factors that helped her to discover herselves and grow into the individuals she is today.

Her decisions about what type of person she want to become, and what work she wants to do, might continue to evolve. But these issues will no longer be "problems" for Debby. She have learned how to figure things out for herselves.

Debby - YWIES Shanghai Lingang

Deciding What Subjects to Study and What Major to Pursue

Eighteen-year-old Debby has a certain serenity unusual for her age. She seems calm when talking about anything. Her peers might get excited about winning a sport match, taking an overseas study trip, or discussing a subject that they are passionate about. When reflecting on her experiences at YWIES Shanghai Lingang, Debby always evaluated the gains and losses with a detached attitude.

Her way of thinking is the result of  the subject she once loved—physics, a discipline that emphasises truth and pragmatism. All conclusions in physics come from meticulous observation of the real world, and careful, logical inference.

The way physicists think attracted Debby to the subject. In physics classes, Debby always felt the joy of this way of thinking. The teachers used the most perceptible ways to enable students intuitively to grasp the laws of physics, to understand the disciplinary thinking of physics, and to think like a physicist. The teachers also supplemented the lessons with experimental classes.

Interest is the best teacher. When discussing physics, Debby suddenly became talkative and enthusiastic, despite her calm demeanour. Because of this passion, Debby took or self-studied many physics and mathematics courses much more advanced than those at the high school level. She also participated in competitions such as the British Physics Olympiad (BPhO) and the Euclid Mathematics Contest, and attained multiple gold awards.

After demonstrating her talent in physics, Debby received personalised tutoring beyond the regular physics curriculum. The teachers would pose specific physics problems individually for Debby to study by herself and to research independently.

It's hard to imagine that Debby was a "late starter" when she arrived at YWIES. She had never attended any after-school classes, her English needed improvement, and she had fallen behind in many subjects.

"It was much later that I realised how lucky I was," Debby said. "I later learned that many schools only focus on students with academic potential, but that is not the case at YWIES Shanghai Lingang. The teachers care equally about every student and teach according to individual needs."

The academic atmosphere in the classrooms also made her feel relaxed. "Not attending extra classes didn’t make me anxious, because no one around me was really joining the rat race," Debby said. Only by becoming calm and not obsessing about grades can one have time to explore what one wants to do.

Back then, Debby was interested in drones, so she applied to establish a drone modelling and control club, mainly to study the kinematics modelling and dynamics modelling of drones. The objects of analysis in high school physics classes are often greatly simplified point masses. "But we still applied those physics laws for drone modelling, but it's much more complex. The challenge is not in writing down the derivation process of the modelling, but in understanding the derivation," Debby noted in explaining the achievements of the club.

In fact, determining the derivation is far beyond the knowledge of the vast majority of high school students. It requires the use of analytical mechanics and other more advanced physics that are usually studied in the later years of an undergraduate physics major. The analysis also requires the mathematics of calculus, linear algebra, and tensors. For this reason, Debby read pertinent textbooks in her spare time. She often encountered material she couldn't understand, so she asked her teachers or watched professional videos on Bilibili to deepen her understanding.

In the first semester, Debby's club had five members. By the second semester, however, only Debby and another member remained. Together, they eventually completed a 20-page paper analysing modelling.

This journey of exploration might sound lonely and challenging, but Debby enjoyed it. When she had previously read university physics textbooks, she sometimes felt that the theories were too distant from the real world. She didn’t know how and where they could be applied. The research process made her realise that this seemingly irrelevant knowledge had long penetrated various aspects of daily life. She also greatly enjoyed this self-learning process. She could decide what problems to explore and what questions to propose. This was very different from exams and competitions.

Nevertheless, the learning process can sometimes be painful. Debby would suddenly have doubts about, "Why am I doing this?". But she found that most robotics books start with establishing a coordinate system, and she realised that "physics knowledge is essential". The teacher did not provide her with the reasons for studying a subject—she discovered the reasons by herself.

Debby considers this as her biggest achievement at YWIES – she discovered that she had become independent, with the motivation and ability to learn by herself, and that she had mastered time management skills. Compared to specific knowledge, Debby feels that these are the characteristics which will be useful for life.

In this process, Debby discovered that controlling drones in the real world required her to consider many more factors than in the ideal environment of a computer simulation. In a computer simulation, all operations have immediate feedback, and are consistent with theoretical calculations. Because of the existence of sampling intervals in a real environment, however, the motion status of the drone is not reflected in real-time, and it also takes time to implement the instructions given to the drone. This results in deviations. In addition, the drone operator needs to consider situations where the instructions cannot be  delivered as planned, thus requiring additional thought and analysis.

This research helped Debby recognise the difference between the real world and the theoretical world. After physics, chemical engineering, and computer science, she became interested in electrical and electronic engineering, which she considers as a speciality that, " integrates theory and practice well".

This relatively new discipline has existed for only a few decades. Yet, the research results of this discipline have profoundly changed the world, and have become an indispensable part of modern human civilisation.

Debby feels that the learning process is gratifying, "Because what I'm learning is the essence of knowledge accumulated by humans in the last few decades". By proceeding in this direction, she can not only utilise her mathematical and physical knowledge to study very abstract theories, but also do very specific and actual applications. This would give Debby a broad range for future development.

Debby never thought she would study such advanced topics in high school. She is very grateful that YWIES gave her such a high degree of freedom. "Perhaps one was originally interested in certain directions, and then he or she changed direction. But I can always choose the direction I want to pursue as desired. The starting point of all choices is curiosity," Debby said.

After evaluating her interests and the schools’ strong disciplines, Debby finally decided to apply for an electrical and electronic engineering major, and eventually received offers from several universities, including Imperial College London.

Reflecting on the application season, this humble young woman felt she didn't perform ideally. Her grades weren't particularly excellent. She didn't participate in any background-enhancing projects during school holidays. She even answered a primary math question wrong in the interview, and couldn't answer a question related to her drone project.

"There is no standard template for admission," Debby suggested. In addition to the quantifiable indicators, what truly impressed the admission officers was probably her undisguised passion for physics and her quest for the truth.

In media reports, we often see a typical story: a child decides on a goal early on, works hard, and then realizes the dream. But is this the only correct path?

Compared to the environment in which many "tiger parents" raise their children, the serenity of Debby seems particularly precious. So what if she changes her professional direction? So what if she started much later than her peers? For Debby, there is no such thing as a "wasted" journey in life. This is not a cliché, but the foundation of her own self-discovery.