Chapter 48: Making A Fortune From Writing Theses
Chapter 48: Making A Fortune From Writing Theses
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou worked for the entire day. It was already ten o’clock when he copied the program into his USB and turned off the computer.
He could not grind too much as he had just spent the whole of last night studying Python. He could not do another all-nighter, at least not if he wanted to live a long life.
According to his original plan, he would start studying advanced knowledge of C++, using books from the system’s book list.
However, it seemed that he had to make some tiny adjustments to his plan.
For example, he wanted to read two extra advanced Python books but did not want to delay the completion of his mission.
"I didn’t expect to use this book list already…" said Lu Zhou as he looked at the draft paper that contained the book list that Wang Xiaodong gave him. He said in his heart, "I hope peacefulness comes to good people."
The summer vacation went by quickly. Soon, it was already mid-August.
Lu Zhou did not know if the system was playing tricks on him, but he found out that he was being more and more addicted to learning to the point that he could not extract himself.
Liu Rui said that he was obsessed, but Lu Zhou disagreed.
He agreed that the learning process was boring, but acquiring the knowledge was joyful.
Even though it sounded contradictory, it actually was not.
After all, one could not acquire knowledge from study techniques. Sometimes, a person could read a book for hours but could not understand a single sentence. Even monk would find that boring.
When one could fully understand every word and every concept while at the same time, knew that one’s knowledge was increasing, one would naturally be inclined to study without any prompting.
Right now, he had completed 25/30 of the reward mission. The final five books consisted of integrated circuit design and mechanical engineering books.
If it was two months ago, Lu Zhou would not be able to understand these textbooks. However, as he had the foundations of mathematics and physics, he felt confident in reading those textbooks.
On the other hand, Lu Zhou’s main focus was still information science.
After all, it was so expensive for him to level up information science. It would be a waste not to utilize it.
He spent nearly a month to finish developing the app and it even passed the final bug check. The process was far more difficult than he imagined, but fortunately, he was eventually able to overcome them.
As a result, his app development experience was raised from zero to one.
The app name was called "campus train". From the name, the target demographic was students from major universities. He did not hire a front-end developer and so, the user interface of the app was very simple. All of the designs were found online for free and the style was simple and smooth.
In order to learn the development of an android app, Lu Zhou learned some developer tools and watched a lot of technical programming videos. He learned all of this in his free time.
Lu Zhou really did not have the energy to port to IOS. He wanted to do it later.
The question now was finding a server with good quality. If he did not have a server, forget about benefiting society, at most he could let his roommates use the app.
While Lu Zhou was worrying about
…
When Lu Zhou entered the office, Professor Tang smiled and casually gestured him to sit. He then asked with a smile, "How are you recently?"
"I’m pretty good, professor. What’s up?" said Lu Zhou with a smile.
Professor Tang smiled and said, "It’s almost September. Dean Lu wanted me to ask you, how is your preparation going?"
"Preparation is going okay, I think I should be fine. It’ll just depend on how my two teammates are doing," replied Lu Zhou with a smile.
"That’s good. This competition is a good opportunity, I hope you can perform well. I won’t ask you anything else. Professor Liu knows more than I do so you should go and ask him if you are unsure of anything," said Professor Tang before paused. He smiled and looked at Lu Zhou, "What have you been researching recently? Did you cook up another famous project?"
What?
How did you know?
Surprised, Lu Zhou looked at Professor Tang and asked, "How did you know?"
"I’m just casually asking! You really didn’t let me down," said Professor Tang as he leaned back on his office chair. He then unscrewed his mug and took a sip before asking, "Tell me, what is it this time?"
"This time I didn’t research anything worth mentioning…" said Lu Zhou as he smiled embarrassingly. He continued, "I just heard some students complaining about buying train tickets during the peak holiday periods. So, I wrote a ticket-buying app."
Lu Zhou’s answer shocked Professor Tang. He frowned as he asked, "When did you start researching computer science?"
He originally thought that Lu Zhou was quietly researching mathematics. However, it turned out that he ran to computer science.
The last time they met, Lu Zhou was still studying Mersenne prime numbers.
Why is Lu Zhou so clumsy, he has no direction!
Lu Zhou was very puzzled as he thought, "Why is Professor Tang like this as well? Did my mathematical talent really surpass my computer science talents?"
Just half a month ago, Huaguo Youth Daily praised him for his "all around" talent.
"… Oh, I have always been researching computer science," said Lu Zhou as he tried to correct him.
Professor Tang was slightly stunned. He smiled awkwardly as if he remembered. He coughed and asked, "Are you switching to computer science next semester?"
Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "I don’t have plans for that yet. I think it is very important to learn mathematics well. It is very helpful for studying other subjects. Also, the other majors might not be suitable for me."
He was telling the truth. When he was learning the basics of organic and inorganic chemistry, his mathematical knowledge really came in handy.
"Computer science is a pretty popular major as well. I’m not against you switching majors. However, let me give you some advice. If you continue to dive into mathematics, you’ll be more successful. I’ve lectured for many years and you’re one of the most gifted students I have ever seen," said Professor Tang. He sighed, "Of course, I know that you’re not the kind of person that can sit in a lab and do research. You’re too impatient!"
Lu Zhou was confused. He did not know if Professor Tang was complimenting or insulting him.
Or maybe it was a pity?
"Forget it. I’ll stop talking. Digest this yourself," sighed Professor Tang. He shook his head before saying, "I called you over today because I wanted to talk about your thesis and see if you made any progress. I didn’t expect you to jump to computer science. I guess I’ve wasted my time."
Lu Zhou raised his eyebrows as he thought, "If I keep writing theses, I’m scared that you’ll think that I’m writing substandard theses. Why do you always think that I’m doing something wrong?"
Of course, he could not voice his thoughts out loud.
Lu Zhou coughed, smiled, and said, "Teacher, mathematics is hard to do well. I tried my best."
Professor Tang waved his hand and did not argue. He placed his mug on his desk and said, "Okay, we’ll leave it at that. Leave your bank account number here and leave."
Bank account number?
Lu Zhou was stunned.
Professor Tang looked at his surprised face. He squinted and smiled as he asked, "What? Why do you look so surprised? Did no one tell you?"
"About what?" asked Lu Zhou with his eyebrows raised. He had a bad feeling about this.
"The school had a meeting recently. It said to strongly support scientific research activities and encourage students to discover new knowledge, they wanted us to look at the statistics and see how many theses each department submitted," said Professor Tang. He then paused and smiled before continuing, "Basically, you’re getting money. This money is allocated according to the SCI theses impact factor! I can’t remember exactly how much, but no less than five thousand!"
Five thousand!
Lu Zhou took a deep breath and said seriously, "Professor, I suddenly have some good ideas. Can I still submit the SCI theses now?"
"F*ck off," said Professor Tang. He laughed, "It’s too late!"
He did not know why, but he felt happy looking at Lu Zhou like this.
Unexplainable happiness!