Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 1400 - 680: Chen Yingjun Seeks Advice, Bringing Professor Qi Home

Chapter 1400: Chapter 680: Chen Yingjun Seeks Advice, Bringing Professor Qi Home

Some old sayings never go out of style, like "one kind of soil can nurture a hundred kinds of people."

Both are professors, but Professor Qi, whether with himself or others, is so traditional as to be almost harsh. The reason he treats Yan Fei well can only be chalked up to good timing. If Yan Fei had met Professor Qi a few years earlier, wanting to establish a close relationship with him would have been difficult, considering Professor Qi’s usual stern demeanor that rarely even includes a smile.

Professor He, on the other hand, is strict only with work-related issues, or should say, matters of major importance, but he isn’t as demanding when it comes to his private life; he’s even somewhat capricious, like an old child.

Compared with the two of them, Professor Shu is a bit more "pragmatic." But this "pragmatism" isn’t negative—it’s all in the interest of teaching students better.

After all, with different specialties, Professors Qi and He just need the school to provide conditions for their research, but for Professor Shu’s field, if you ask a group of students to study with just textbooks, or to learn from completed buildings or models, the students produced will inevitably be overly theoretical but lacking practical skills—"One learns shallowly from mere books, and deep understanding requires hands-on experience."

Therefore, unavoidably, Professor Shu has to get students involved in society earlier and take on some construction projects as practice. It’s necessary; after Architecture students graduate, if they can’t even test the compressive strength of concrete sample blocks, or if those designing plans can only talk theory without considering practical situations—like designing a lake where a mountain used to be, or turning an existing pond into a rockery—then it’s not just a joke, it’s jeopardizing the school’s reputation!

This is something most acutely felt by those who have been students themselves. With the rise of the internet, suddenly a field became hot: computer technology.

Whether it’s technical secondary schools, colleges or universities, they all jumped on the bandwagon and offered the specialty. However, some schools have just a few broken computers in the lab, and hundreds of students can only rotate to have one or two class sessions per week. If the students don’t actively learn and research and lack the means at home to practice with a computer, you can imagine their situation after graduation.

Have you seen a Computer Science and Technology major graduate and fail at installing an operating system when looking for a job, unable to even distinguish between a hard drive and an optical drive? Have you seen someone insert a floppy disk into a computer case, unable to tell front from back? Have you seen those who, after four years of study, can’t reinstall the operating system from a disk when it crashes?

Let’s not even talk about the more challenging technical issues. Just these near jokes are happening or about to happen.

Some traditional teachers might think that Professor Shu taking students out to "make money" is wrong, but for the students, it’s truly a good thing, as good as it gets.

Only once they graduate and enter society will students realize that working on construction sites as college students, graduates, or even doctoral candidates is not only nothing to be ashamed of, but a rare and extremely valuable practical experience.

Just take the simplest example: using cement and sand to fix a pavement in front of a door. Some could graduate from an Architecture program without understanding why some pavements have a very smooth surface while others seem covered in sand, unpleasant to look at, with sand that comes loose when stepped on.

Pavement is a common sight, and most people know how to make it. You should take a trowel and firmly pat down a few times before smoothing it out. Those few pats push the sand down, and the top becomes a layer of cement paste. Once smoothed, it’s not only sleek but also durable.

So, when everyone speaks about the importance of practice, it truly is essential for understanding certain things. As a university graduate who may become part of the management in the future, if you don’t know these basics—the rough-looking people working hard won’t say anything to your face, but behind your back, who knows how they are mocking you? Don’t even dream of them respecting you without this knowledge!

The benefits of practice extend far beyond this. In addition to testing the theories learned in school against reality, it also enables a person to encounter all kinds of people in society early on—especially important for students who have only progressed from one academic institution to another, focusing solely on study.

It is precisely because Professor Shu often involves his students in social practice that interactions with him feel like facing a wise, generous elder.

Even Chen Yingjun, due to his association with Du Minghui, seems to have a quite good relationship with Professor Shu.

So much so that in the course of conversation, taking advantage of the girls going to speak with the professor’s wife, Chen Yingjun asked a rather presumptuous question, "Professor Shu, what do you think if someone previously engaged in some not-so-legal business and now has sincerely repented and started a legitimate enterprise, wants to make amends for those past misdeeds, where should he begin?"

Afraid that Professor Shu might misunderstand, Chen Yingjun quickly added, "Don’t worry, the business wasn’t legal, but it definitely wasn’t about cheating and deceiving or doing anything unthinkably bad. It was just about someone smuggling in some vehicles from outside, and he acted as a middleman to make a bit of profit through resale."