Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou flipped through a few resumes and found out just how competitive America Universities were.
Ten resumes in a row and not a single of them had a GPA lower than 3.7. That was an A!
If it was in China, a 3.5 would be considered a genius.
Even though dumb students did not dare to apply to Princeton, these resumes were almost too good.
It was like inflation. If everyone had high marks, no one had high marks…
Since academic grades did not mean anything, Lu Zhou could only look at other achievements.
Students with thesis writing experience and research experience were preferred. Lu Zhou did not care about social work, sports, and recommendation letters. Despite most American professors caring about these things, Lu Zhou had his own way of judging.
Finally, after some consideration, he picked out ten resumes. All of the candidates were well rounded.
He liked Vera Pulyuy from Berkeley the most.
An IMO gold medalist was worthy of any university. He briefly talked with this girl at Berkeley before and had a good impression of her.
However, Lu Zhou had not expected her to finish her undergrad at such a young age.
Maybe she was the next Tao Zhexuan?
Interestingly, one of her three recommendation letters were from Tao Zhexuan, who taught as a professor at the University of California.
In short, Lu Zhou kept this resume.
Since it was Lu Zhou’s first time, he planned to recruit three master’s students. Then each semester he would decide if he wanted to recruit more. It was a nuisance to have students at different stages of research.
One of the spots were given to IMO gold medalist Vera, so there were two more remaining spots for the nine resumes.
In order to prevent Xiao Tong from annoying him, Lu Zhou arranged all of his interviews in the morning.
Xiao Tong never woke up early.
Before noon?
Impossible.
The first round of interviews was mainly for Chinese students. He would definitely recruit at least one Chinese student. If he could, he would have given this spot to his schoolmates from the University of Jin Ling, but the timing did not work out.
Lu Zhou opened Skype and began the first interview.
The first interviewee called him at the pre-arranged time.
A young lady with bangs and round glasses appeared on the computer screen. She looked beautiful and elegant, but that was not the main point.
Lu Zhou looked at her resume and cleared his throat.
“Liang Shuyu, right?”
Liang Shuyu smiled. She was not intimidated by Lu Zhou. She nodded and said, “Yes!”
Lu Zhou, “What do you plan on doing after graduation.”
Liang Shuyu said, “I plan on doing a PhD. After that, I want to do scientific research. I want to contribute to the world of science…”
Lu Zhou looked at the bottom right corner of his computer. He noticed that she spoke for exactly three minutes.
Lu Zhou looked at her strangely and asked, “Then, why did you choose number theory?”
With no surprise, he received a standard answer.
“I read Mr. Hua Luogeng’s “Theory of Prime numbers”, and Joseph H. Silverman’s “Introduction to Number Theory”. Since college, I have been interested in number theory. After I saw that you solved Goldbach’s conjecture on TV, and received the Crafoord Prize, I felt very excited. From that moment onwards, I made up my mind to follow you and to explore the mystery of prime numbers.”
Lu Zhou was embarrassed at this ass kissing. He then said, “Then briefly explain the Group Structure Method…”
If you worship me this much, this should be easy.
However, something awkward happened.
The lady was stunned at this question.
However, she responded quickly. She muttered some stuff but did not hit the major points.
Clearly, she came well prepared and acted like she was very interested in Lu Zhou. However, she did not really get into Lu Zhou’s work.
This was not a big deal. If she knew all of Lu Zhou’s theories, Lu Zhou would not have anything to teach her.
However, one of Lu Zhou’s requirements in students was honesty.
He wanted students that were genuine and sincere.
Lu Zhou sighed in his heart. He then smiled warmly and said, “It’s fine if you don’t know. Some things are esoteric. It might be difficult for you. Let’s end this here. I’ll tell you the result in a week.”
Liang Shuyu’s eyes lit up. She thought she had a chance, so she smiled and said, “Thank you, professor.”
The video call ended.
Lu Zhou drew a cross on her resume and placed it aside.
There was no chance.
The interviewee reminded him of President Lin from the Student Union.
Although he did not hate President Lin, he did not want to have someone like her in his laboratory.
As for her master’s degree motive, Lu Zhou guessed that she wanted to come to Princeton and pad her qualifications. After that, she would return to China and join the Thousand People Initiative.
Honestly, Lu Zhou wanted to say, “If you’re going to play the political route, then go and become a politician. Don’t come to me.”
There were very few Chinese professors are Princeton, so this spot was valuable!
Lu Zhou took a few minutes to rest before he started the second interview.
This interviewee was a guy.
Unfortunately, Lu Zhou did not receive a single application from a student of the University of Jin Ling.
Lu Zhou cleared his throat and said, “Qin Yue, right?”
Qin Yue quickly nodded and nervously said, “Yes!”
Lu Zhou looked at Qin Yue’s nervous face and knew why he was leftover.
Honesty was the first element in an interview. However, just being honest was not enough. Interviewing also required the ability to express one’s talents.
Otherwise, they could not even do a presentation report on stage. It would be a waste of time to train them.
However, Lu Zhou decided to give him a chance, mainly because his academic grades were pretty good.
What was rare was that this guy published a thesis as an undergraduate student. Although it was an average thesis, for an undergraduate student, it was pretty impressive.
Lu Zhou said, “Introduce yourself.”
Qin Yue sat up straight as he said nervously, “I’m Qin Yue, 23 years old…”
Although he stuttered at first, he got better by the end. Lu Zhou then asked a few technical questions to test knowledge in the number theory.
In general, this guy was a very talented student and a good character. Even though Lu Zhou thought that he was a little shy, that confidence could be built.
When Lu Zhou saw that the time was nearly up, he said, “Let’s end the interview here. I’ll email you the result in a week.”
When Qin Yue heard Lu Zhou, he felt relieved. He then nodded and thanked Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou looked at Qin Yue’s bitter smile and thought that Qin Yue did not even have hope in himself.
After Lu Zhou ended the video call, his pen hovered on Qin Yue’s resume.
Should I keep him?
In the end, he did not draw a cross. He simply wrote a line of comment and placed the resume aside.
There were still so many candidates. He wanted to choose after interviewing everyone.
