From July 21st to August 11th, 14 students from our freshman to junior college wentto the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to exchange and study.The project includes several courses in informatics, including artificialintelligence, control systems, network analysis and other courses, as well assome activities organized by UIUC to understand the local customs of the schooland the United States. In the short 21 days of exchanges, we not onlyexperience the curriculum style and learning atmosphere in the United States,but also have a basic knowledge about some areas concerned information science.
In the next two days,UIUC arranged the introduction of campus and other activities. We are alsoguided to register and complete the campus card used at school. During thevisit, we visited various buildings of UIUC, including libraries, teachingbuildings, laboratories, etc. At the same time, we also learned at the briefingthat UIUC has a strong research academic background in science and engineering,business and other fields, cultivating a large number of big experts. Sincethis is a summer vacation, there are not many students in the school, and thewhole school is quiet and academic. It can be seen from the two days of visitsand introductions that UIUC is one of the top American research universities inscience and engineering. We are also interested in and expecting the followingcourses.
After a few days offamiliarity with the campus, the formal courses began. According to differentchoices for each person, we went to various classes according to different timeperiods. Prof. Svetlana Lazebnik, given "Artificial Intelligence"class, introduced the development and application of artificial intelligence,such as search algorithms and game games, in this week's class. Prof. JanaDiesner, given "Network Analysis" class, vividly and interestinglydescribes the various concepts of the network through various examples. Inorder to consolidate the classroom knowledge, the teachers also arrangedhomework assignments. It is certain that through this stage of carefullistening and timely completion of the homework, we can have a betterunderstanding of the knowledge in these areas and apply it to later learningand research.
After four days of study, UIUCarranged a trip to Springfield for us on Saturday. We visited the IllinoisState Capitol, the Lincoln Museum, and the home and cemetery of PresidentLincoln in Illinois. Throughout the visit, staff members introduced us to therelevant historical knowledge of various attractions, which gave us a deeperunderstanding and respect for the president. At the same time, this day's touralso allowed us to further experience the local community culture in the UnitedStates.
On the last two days of Illinois, wewere actively preparing for the final examination. Each course is evaluated ina different way. Artificial intelligence is a small test plus a thinkingproblem. Social networks perform a group assignment to analyze and display adata set. Each group's topic selection is very unique and interesting, and thereply is always the Eight Immortals crossing the sea. Finally, every student isvery rewarding. Such course assignments are also available in ZhejiangUniversity, and the performance of the students is also very positive.
On the last day of University ofIllinois, the students dressed in formal clothes and participated in the lunch.Lunch was very rich. Everyone sat with the teachers in the class and enjoyedthe food. Matt hosted the entire lunch, expressing our vision for the project,and our representatives and NASA representatives came to the stage to expresstheir gratitude to all the teachers, to express our gratitude for the friendshipof friends and landlords and to express our good impression of the Universityof Illinois.
Last week we visited Washington andNew York, went to Columbia University, visited libraries and classrooms, andyearned for the famous Ivy League college. We visited the Metropolitan Museumof America and got a lot of cultural and artistic edification. We traced back alot of history.
