Caltech, located in Pasadena, eastern California, USA, is a world-famous private research university. The campus is small and there are few students, which is a portrayal of this famous school. But my deepest feeling as an alumnus is its beautiful campus, unique architecture, quiet environment, high academic intensity and numerous scientific and technological elites.
Here, the total number of students in the school is basically around 2,000, but there are 35 Nobel Prize winners, which is the highest density of Nobel Prize winners in the world. California Institute of Technology is the only top private university in the United States that has not implemented affirmative action policy, so the proportion of Asians here is very, very high. I don't want to introduce affirmative action here. Interested students can go to Wikipedia to download. However, because Caltech's major is not complete, its campus area is small, and it doesn't care much about the operation and promotion of commercial propaganda, the comprehensive ranking can't be compared with some ivy league schools such as "Buddhist College" and "Big Tiger", and its ranking has declined slightly in recent years.
Qian Xuesen, a famous "two bombs and one satellite" figure in China, obtained a master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then transferred to California Institute of Technology to continue his doctoral degree. He studied aviation engineering theory under the world-famous mechanics professor von Carmen, and then stayed in school to teach. After returning to the motherland, he became the "father of China's space flight". At the same time, Caltech is also the actual background of the famous American drama The Big Bang Theory.
California Institute of Technology was originally developed from a vocational school founded by local businessman and politician Amos G. Throop in Pasadena in 189 1. Before 1920, the school was famous for Thrope University, Thrope Institute of Technology and Thrope Institute of Technology. The "power" to promote California Institute of Technology from an arts and crafts school to a world-class science center comes from astronomer george ellery hale. He successfully attracted private land and financial support, established and equipped the school with good modern laboratory facilities, and persuaded experimental physicist Millikan to join California Institute of Technology, which laid a solid foundation for California Institute of Technology to become today's science and technology center.
At present, the departments of California Institute of Technology include: College of Biological Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, College of Geology and Planetary Sciences, College of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, and College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The key subjects are physics, followed by engineering, chemistry, biology, aerospace, astronomy and geology. Science is always the only theme of Caltech! There are the most modern laboratories in American universities, the Gai Ke telescope, the world's largest astronomical telescope, and many famous physicists and chemists, all of whom made discoveries that shocked the world at California Institute of Technology. Einstein (the scientist I admired most since I was a child) once lived here, giving up the "cosmological invariance theory" he always insisted on and accepting the "cosmological expansion theory" instead. Physicist carl anderson discovered positrons here; Richard Fei Erman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has been teaching for decades and is one of the most respected professors among students.
The library system resources of the school are also very rich, including five branches: Millikan Library, Sherman Library, Dabney Library, Astrophysics Library and Geological Planetary Science Library. Michigan Library and Sherman Library are the two most important libraries.
The Beckman Institute mainly studies the correlation between biology and chemistry, named after the chemist Beckman, and established by the fund he donated. Beckman received a postdoctoral degree in chemistry from California Institute of Technology, and once stayed as a professor. He is not only a great chemist, but also a famous industrialist. Beckman Chemical Instruments is a global company. He also invented the acidity meter, through which the basic properties of acid and alkali can be quantitatively measured.
There are many buildings named after Beckman on campus, including my favorite landmark: Beckman Auditorium.
The famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) of California Institute of Technology was founded by professors and students of the Aerodynamics Laboratory of California Institute of Technology, and later it was affiliated to NASA. Although it is called a laboratory, it is actually a fairly large space research center, which is super mysterious. JPL not only controls the global deep space exploration network, but also makes measurements and ocean observations on Earth satellites. In recent years, it has also become the base camp for Mars exploration, and every exploration will set off waves of Mars fever around the world.
The treasure of Caltech School is a cannon with a history of 130 years. At the annual opening ceremony, Caltech usually fires this cannon. About this cannon, there is also a prank between MIT and Caltech, which has been circulating for many years. The two schools have been fighting in secret for a long time. Students of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) once pretended to be a moving company, forged documents to deceive the security guards of California Institute of Technology, and "cheated" the cannons from the west coast to the east coast. Of course, before MIT's prank, Caltech students had already mixed into MIT, distributing crumpled MIT T-shirts that seemed to be officially distributed to visiting students, with the words "MIT" printed on the front and "Because not everyone has the opportunity to go to Caltech" printed on the back. Hahaha ~ So there is a particularly interesting phenomenon, no matter whether you are in the bookstore of Caltech or in the bookstore of MIT, you will see goods with the LOGO of the other school. The two famous schools not only compete with each other academically, but also play pranks in various ways.
Here, you can discuss academic issues with classmates and professors at any place and on any occasion, without worrying about whether you will be despised by people around you when you discuss the conditional probability formula of Gaussian process or consult the yoke gradient method when you go shopping in supermarkets or coffee shops. To tell an interesting joke. In order to go deep into MIT, most Caltech students call MIT "another college". And call MIT their gay friends school. . . Please make up for it yourself.
Many students of Caltech are geeks or nerds, so students with high IQ and "unique" like activities and ways of entertaining themselves, which outsiders can't understand, such as self-made ice skating, bread rally for dinner, liquid nitrogen ice cream and so on. All kinds of wonderful ideas and games have appeared, so I don't want to introduce them more, for fear of scaring many students who like this school.
But the academic difficulty and curriculum saturation here are extremely high. At the undergraduate level, the school requires students of any major, even those who study economics or political science, to study at least five semesters of mathematics (fractional, linear, general, partial and general), five semesters of physics (mechanics, electromagnetism, narrow phase, heat and quantum), two semesters of theoretical chemistry and 12 humanities and social sciences. So every time students and parents ask me what my undergraduate major is, I always answer half economics and half mathematics and physics. Objectively speaking, every student who graduated from California Institute of Technology, no matter what his major is, even if he studies humanities, his academic ability in science is absolutely not inferior to that of students majoring in science and engineering in other schools.
In addition, in California Institute of Technology, no matter which major you are, you should complete at least 54 courses in four years and take about 5 courses each semester. If you are an engineering student, you should basically take at least 65 courses. But this kind of high-intensity ability training is very effective for my own potential development, and it often makes me look at myself from different angles, which is amazing.
It is particularly worth mentioning that Caltech is a place that pays great attention to high trust and honesty, so students can take the exams home and do them themselves, look at their watches and invigilate themselves. One of the honor principles of Caltech is that "any member of the Caltech community has to use any other member of the Caltech community fairly." My Chinese translation is "Don't take advantage of others".
The motto of California Institute of Technology is: Truth will set you free. Walking around the campus, you can find unique memories of reading at that time in every corner. Although you have to face great academic pressure every day when you go to school (it is really huge), you can remember yourself, remember your classmates who have worked hard, and remember the professors who have been actively discussing.
I think it is this precious experience of studying and living in California Institute of Technology that has taught me to communicate freely, openly and fully, so that my mind has been baptized and grown, and I have learned and exercised in-depth and cautious thinking and logical ability, as well as the personal code of conduct that should attach importance to honesty, mutual assistance and respect.