Personal Statement
Applied Program: Aerospace Engineering

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar" I must say that I am genuinely grateful to Helen Keller for articulating what I have long cherished in the innermost recesses of my mind. At the same time I also congratulate myself on having chosen flying as my one-time career, for it has imparted to me both the impulse and the desire to soar in my life.

Ten years ago when I was an undergraduate from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Tsinghua University, or even 5 years ago when I just entered the China Civil Aviation Flight University, I had the stubborn notion that, for the rest of my life, I would stay on the ground working either as a mechanist engaged in mechanical designing and the technical improvement of materials. It never dawned on me that I would transcend all the matter-of-course outcomes resulting from my five-year undergraduate studies to become a pilot of international flights, for at that time the idea had never occurred to me that a person could fly so freely in the infinite universe of his life.

In 1990, I sailed through the highly competitive National University Entrance Examination to become an undergraduate in Tsinghua University. Out of my instinctive interest, I chose to study in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. My 5-year solid studies at this most prestigious university in China allowed me to establish a profound theoretical groundwork in mechanical engineering and to develop an in-depth understanding of mechanical dynamics and its operation principle. During my graduation internship, I discovered that, because of the airborne sand, the cylinder piston ring of the desert vehicle which did not receive alloy surface treatment frequently incur friction damage and breaking. This not only created great hindrance to the normal operation of desert vehicles but also seriously jeopardized the life and security of personnel doing field work in the desert. Driven by my sense of responsibility, I chose The Surface Alloy Treatment of the Cylinder Piston Ring of Desert Vehicles by Laser, a highly difficult technical subject which constituted part of a research program of the National 9th Five-Year Plan, as the topic of my graduation design. I was responsible for organizing a research team to conduct designing, processing and analyzing involved in the investigation. In order to arrive at the perfect ratio of different substances to be contained in the alloy, I undertook innumerable experiments which were coupled with innumerable failures. Sometimes I would stay in the laboratory for days without knowing the lapse of time. During this difficult but equally exciting period, it was Edison's motto Success Means Standing up Once More After Failure that sustained me. With due efforts, we concluded the research satisfactorily, not only