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scholar profile: tian shaoying, a cold war historian. author authorized publication, this is a revised and republished version.

more than 20 years have passed since we started our undergraduate studies. the new semester is about to start, and the next generation of children will enter college at the age of 16 or 17 and begin their adult life. despite the generational differences, i think the learning and life experiences of our generation of college students can still provide some mirrors for the current freshmen, so that they can spend their college years without regrets and detours, especially the undergraduate stage which has the greatest impact on personality formation.

it is necessary to explain that children from highly educated families who grow up on university campuses are a minority after all. the main readers of this article are children from rural areas and small and medium-sized cities, from ordinary families, who come to universities in big cities. i hope it will help them adapt to the study and life in big cities and universities as soon as possible. of course, i also hope that children with better family backgrounds and knowledge backgrounds can understand others more after reading this article, and can help each other with classmates from different backgrounds. i hope you can become lifelong friends during your university years.

psychological and goal adjustment after entering university

first of all, you must not indulge yourself after entering university.although the whole society has discussed quality education for many years, with the baton of the college entrance examination, young people are inevitably going through the purgatory of hard preparation for the exam. after entering university, the hard study in the past can easily lead to a backlash of aversion to learning and dropping out of school. a very small number of students are addicted to martial arts novels and online games, and even worse, addicted to online pornography. every year, dozens of students from the university i attend drop out of school with a junior college diploma in their junior year, regretting it and their families heartbroken. most of them are caused by addiction to online games. the high school friend of my upper-bunk classmate was admitted to beijing from another province. after entering the mathematics department, he became addicted to games; the son of my neighbor in my hometown was addicted to pornographic videos and left the campus early. to study and live in college, you must first cultivate self-control. without self-control and self-management as a foundation, everything will be castles in the air and there is no way to talk about it.

secondly, after entering university, you must accept your ordinariness.being excellent in high school does not mean that you will be a winner for life. especially for those high school students from "small places" who are admitted to famous universities, you are often the pride of the middle school, and are loved by teachers and parents. however, after entering university, you will face talents from all over the world. some people are so talented, have good grades, and have a smooth development that you may never be able to match them in your life. it is also difficult for teachers in college to praise you every day. at this time, you must not be lost, you must not fall into jealousy or inferiority, and you must not be depressed because of this. you must see that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. you must strive to find your own direction in college, do what you are close to, strive to master your major, observe society, and prepare for the future, instead of always being in a horizontal comparison and worrying about gains and losses at a certain time and place. this is actually imprisoning, punishing, and delaying yourself with others.

most of your generation went to primary school at the age of six or seven, and went to college at the age of sixteen or seventeen, while most of our previous generation went to primary school at the age of seven or eight, and went to college at the age of eighteen or nineteen. don't underestimate the difference of one or two years. there is a reason for choosing eighteen as the age standard for adulthood: the probability of depression after entering college is relatively low. the course evaluation criteria of my major are relatively subjective, and a person's grades have little to do with his or her excellence. however, in recent years, i have repeatedly heard and seen young college students aged seventeen or eighteen who suffered from depression after entering our department because their grades were no longer as outstanding as in high school. a boy was seriously ill. his mother came to accompany him in his junior year. when his mother went downstairs to buy breakfast, he still jumped from the teaching building. another little girl has been hospitalized every year since her freshman year, and her parents can only come to beijing from other places to take care of her. depression is more common among students from rural areas and small and medium-sized cities who enter famous universities in big cities. these are all tragedies of life. produce talents early and quickly; don't let your children lose at the starting line; under the baton of the college entrance examination, students are trained to be winners and losers; these things are eating up people and will continue to eat up people, so we must be careful.

furthermore, after entering university, you must learn to deal with interpersonal relationships.the learning status and academic burden of high school, as well as the level of communication among teenagers, make the scope and ability of high school students' interpersonal communication very limited. entering university is actually the beginning of a person's socialization. from the moment you step into the university campus, no one will control your interpersonal communication. however, this also means that you will have to learn to observe and adapt to society in the future, and play social roles independently and bear the consequences in the process of dealing with others. on the positive side, you must rely on sincerity, frankness, enthusiasm, and mutual assistance to make yourself accepted by others and gain friendship. on the negative side, when you interact with others, you must not be narrow-minded, violate morality and laws, harm others for your own benefit, and you must not do anything for personal gain, otherwise once you are exposed, you will leave a lifelong stain. on the extreme side, the cases of secretly harming classmates because of minor conflicts in recent years are enough to shock the whole society. for example, the case of fudan student lin senhao poisoning his classmates with thallium sulfate is shocking. this warns us that we should not be too sensitive or become gloomy when dealing with interpersonal relationship issues. we should avoid being impetuous in interpersonal interactions and avoid emotional disputes that intensify conflicts.

fourth, we must understand the flaws in the university system.on the one hand, the teacher-student relationship has become weaker under the infiltration of the market economy exchange mentality: students pay tuition, and teachers' teaching and guidance become commodities, which has a great impact on the traditional dignity of teachers and damages the enthusiasm of teaching and learning. in addition, college teachers are under great pressure to publish academic papers, and their investment in teaching may be insufficient, which will affect the consolidation of students' knowledge base. on the other hand, the existence of incidents of teachers sexually harassing students shows that chinese university campuses still have a lot of lessons to learn on the road to rule of law. students should be vigilant and protect themselves.

fifth, after entering university, you must handle the relationship between studies and hobbies well.in fact, the academic burden of university is heavier, and it requires stronger and more efficient self-study ability to make oneself qualified for academic studies and have spare time to enjoy various clubs, sports, arts, volunteer activities, etc. in addition, future social competition, especially in the early stage of job hunting after graduation, mainly depends on a person's professional skills. therefore, students must master certain professional skills during college and lay a qualified knowledge foundation. in this way, even if the work you do in the future is not related to your major, you will have the ability to self-study during the work process to master new knowledge and new skills required for the career.

after the initial psychological and goal adjustments after entering university, you will find in the process of study and life that under the current social conditions, university is definitely not a pure land. universities are inclusive and may be a mixed bag. therefore, you must learn to protect yourself and stay clean and untainted. when you have the ability, strive to transform society.

2. risks in college: knowledge regret, ideological confusion, and unequal opportunities...

first, college may leave you with lifelong intellectual regrets.the experience of our class is a clear proof. i remember that some young teaching assistants who had just graduated with a master's degree stayed on to teach in the school. they especially loved to talk about their sympathetic understanding of li hongzhang in class, turning the basic course into a personal talent show, and did not say a word about the historical evolution of china's relations with the west, the rise and fall of china's national destiny, and the tortuous exploration of the chinese people to save the country. there was also a male teacher who spent a semester lecturing on the "drawer literature" of yu, a "talent" in the chinese department of peking university who was popular at the time. he was completely perfunctory about this course. soon, he resigned and went to guangzhou to become an official. it is undeniable that there are also teachers with real talents and knowledge in our department, but it is difficult to contact them at the undergraduate level. the basic courses are mainly dealt with casually by these people with insufficient levels and improper attitudes. as a result, students either leave with lifelong regrets or are prompted to transfer to other majors.

secondly, college may bring you a lot of ideological confusion.for example, academic fraudsters are making bad money. more than a decade ago, there was no such flourishing media supervision and human flesh search. fraudsters opened dozens of large photocopied documents, copied and pasted, and replaced texts, and could produce one or two core journal articles every month. this generation of people achieved success at a young age and gradually gained fame. in fact, they are niu puluo and kuang chaoren in the scholars. you may encounter such teachers in class.

third, college may give you unfair opportunities.college students are also members of society, with different personalities, and some of them are unscrupulous and have bad intentions. for example, they conceal information: when a ministry comes to recruit, the class leader is ordered to inform all the boys in the class, but he takes everyone downstairs to play football. five minutes later, he claims to have a stomachache and goes upstairs in a suit for the interview. some are also out of jealousy: when they see their roommate’s foreign university admission letter, they reply on her behalf and say they will not go. afterwards, the perpetrator will of course bear legal responsibility, but the victim will have to delay at least a year before going abroad. these hidden arrows are one of the risks of college life.

fourth, university may not teach you how to plan for your future.the purpose of undergraduate education is nothing more than to let students learn to study independently, have the ability of self-management and planning, and influence their personality formation. in the end, students will either pursue further studies or go out into society, each of them will develop and contribute to society. but job hunting is like reincarnation, everyone has their own opportunities and destiny, and the school cannot be responsible for this. there are a large number of undergraduates, and the relationship between teachers and students is mostly weak. after graduation, they go their separate ways and forget each other. most of the teachers have never left the school, do not know much about various professions, and lack a concept of social needs, so no one will guide your career planning and future choices. you may have to explore on your own, trial and error, and take detours. to avoid taking detours, you must make friends with seniors and learn from their positive and negative experiences; you must use online resources. among the employment and postgraduate entrance examination guidance of varying quality, mr. zhang xuefeng is a more reliable source.

in today's society, competition is fierce, and "roll" has become a symbolic word. simply rolling the grade point in school will wear down students' ambitions, damage the relationship between teachers and students and classmates, make young people depressed, eager for fame and fortune, and fill their studies with water, and they cannot form real ability to face future social changes. this is a big trap in the current university environment. a relative's child graduated from a certain financial university in northeast china, majoring in big data. there are 30 graduates in a class, 6 of whom went to large companies, 2 went abroad, and 22 were unemployed. this child still looks like a high school student after graduating from undergraduate school, and has a 985 complex. he applied for the big data major of shanghai jiaotong university and scored 360 points, which is not low in theory, but he cannot compete with many engineering students. he had no choice but to rely on his parents for a year at home, and finally got on the shore after taking the postgraduate entrance examination again, and entered the university of science and technology of china. the child is excellent in learning, but he has experienced these twists and turns, which are related to the mindset of rolling, lack of career planning training, and employment environment. how to find a job, make a living, and take on family and social responsibilities in the future is a great challenge for students who only roll in school. after graduating from a master's degree, this child will have to face social reality. whether he can mature remains to be seen. in fact, most people have no hope of being admitted to graduate school, taking the civil service exam, etc. it is better to face the reality and face the needs of society early to arrange their own studies and future.

it takes more than 20 years for a person to grow up and enter the society from birth, which is not an easy task. the undergraduate stage is at the advanced stage of learning and the initial stage of entering the society. after talking about the risks and hidden dangers in college life, we have to face the fundamental problem of college study: what kind of education do you want to learn how to study, how to think about life and plan for the future.

3. seek general education to find spiritual support and academic support

at the undergraduate level, except for those with outstanding talents, most students start from scratch, learn the basic knowledge of various majors, and then make some choices from them. this is caused by the disconnection between high school and university courses. at the same time, many students will find that they are not interested in their majors after entering their majors. therefore, after entering university, freshmen should read widely and try to create conditions for receiving general education. on the positive side, it enriches their cultivation, strengthens their foundation, and is beneficial to their physical and mental health and career development. on the negative side, it is conducive to changing majors. in our undergraduate class, many people changed to study economics, law, and even computer majors, and there are many different careers.

to seek a general education, one must first study courses in other departments and attend lectures by famous scholars.a young "poet" who shared the same dormitory sat in on the modern poetry class taught by professor sun yushi of the chinese department. he wrote a 10,000-word article on modern poetry and discussed it with professor sun. he was like a newborn calf that was not afraid of a tiger. qian liqun, a famous scholar in the chinese department, gave a speech on his research on lu xun and zhou zuoren brothers, and economist yi gang gave a speech on the chinese economic situation. they were all warmly welcomed by students. zhao dunhua, the director of the department of philosophy, yan buke, a famous teacher in the department of history, and lin yifu, the director of the china economic research center, were all popular among students. now, books such as "listening to lectures at peking university" can be purchased, and many lectures by famous chinese and foreign teachers have videos online. the conditions for learning are much more convenient than in the past, which is conducive to breaking through the current restrictions on student development by university stratification.

i personally benefited a lot from the literature and history classes and works. the head of the chinese department, sun qinshan, talked about the analects, the spiritual world of confucius, and the teacher-student relationship, which was fascinating. he also said that he most admired people like zilu, who walked the straight path and dared to challenge authority. i went to the lectures of wu xiaoru, an old professor of the chinese department, twice and appreciated the beauty of chinese classical poetry and the sincere academic principles of great scholars: knowing people and discussing the world, and judging emotions and reason.

secondly, you should read more chinese and foreign literary and historical works to improve your cultivation and enhance your discernment.people are the product of their times and environment. when we entered university, we followed the trend of reading lu yao's "life", chen zhongshi's "white deer plain", and catching up with the martial arts novels that we had not read or read enough in high school. lu yao's "life" now seems to be suspected of "pseudo-realism", but at that time it made the students who were not well-versed in the world and had not experienced enough suffering burst into tears. i read that the son of the sun family became a scientist and went into space on a chinese spacecraft. after bursting into tears, i felt that the author's spiritual world was childish and shallow, so i put down the book. the boys rushed to pass "white deer plain" around. rather than saying that they loved literature, they were attracted by the sexual descriptions in it. at that time, they could not understand what kind of national epic the author wanted to show, how confucian civilization declined, and at best they understood the zhongtiao mountain anti-japanese war that had never been mentioned in the high school history textbooks, and knew this heavy history. at that time, we did not fully understand the deep meaning of lu zhaopeng's words to heiwa, "be careful of the villagers."

many people read jin yong's martial arts novels with flashlights after turning off the lights, hiding in their beds, and eagerly made up for their studies. this was also influenced by the jin yong research craze in the 1990s. yan jiayan, the head of the chinese department of peking university, kong qingdong, a teacher, and a professor from renmin university whose name i can no longer remember, all gave courses or lectures at peking university to talk about their jin yong research. later, after reading "the legend of swordsmen in shu mountain" by li shoumin, the author of huanzhu louzhu, i realized that jin yong's character design for guo jing, yang guo, and the condor heroes, the adventure-style plot of the novel, and his character dialogues and psychological description techniques were all based on the protagonist ying qiong and the supporting gorilla yuan lang in li shoumin's novels. jin yong's psychological descriptions were even more plagiarized from huanzhu louzhu. in addition, my understanding of jin yong's wei xiaobao-style personality increased day by day, so i could just laugh off these fairy tales for adults.

in the mid-1990s, poets such as haizi and shi zhi died or went mad, and bei dao and mang ke drifted abroad. however, poetry still had a residual warmth on campus. although i have never understood many new poems, i still know that outside the mortal world, there are such a group of the smartest and most perceptive people who are thinking, seeking, struggling, and shining. reading chang yao's "the unexpected manuscripts of the fierce year", shi zhi's "the fish trilogy", "believe in the future", "this is beijing at 4:08", and bei dao's "answer" will help us understand history and add depth to our lives.

speaking of literature, we naturally have to read foreign masterpieces, such as romain rolland's "jean-christophe", kafka's "the metamorphosis" and "the castle", dostoyevsky's "crime and punishment", chekhov's complete collection of short and medium-length novels (translated by ru long), and zweig's short and medium-length novels. the heroism advocated by romain rolland is "to still love life after recognizing the truth of life". christopher's ideological image, his family, love, and friendship experiences are admirable. kafka and dostoevsky's novels are breathtaking, and people wonder why people with such minds have not gone crazy, or they have gone crazy, and their works are their manifestations, but they are so addictive to read. without a strong mentality, beware of depression when reading these works. after reading these literary works, you will know that the most complicated thing in the world is human nature, human heart and human destiny, and there is no end to the exploration of this. many people who study science and engineering always think that liberal arts are simple and easy to learn, and they can pass by memorizing, which is a career for idiots. in fact, liberal arts are more difficult. they don’t know that exploring human nature is more difficult than launching a missile into space.

we can't just read literature, as literature can make people overly sensitive and emotionally fragile. to make up for this deficiency, i recommend that you read more historical books, biographies, and especially memoirs of great figures to absorb historical knowledge and spiritual motivation. in terms of biography, you can read john toland's "adolf hitler", which has a detailed analysis of his life. toland's "the decline and fall of the japanese empire" is also a masterpiece, comparable to william shirer's "the rise and fall of the third reich". in terms of memoirs, churchill's "memoirs of the first world war" and "memoirs of the second world war" are the first choice. this british nobleman, former first lord of the admiralty, first lord of the air force, and twice british prime minister is a rare figure in modern history. what's more valuable is that he has a brilliant writing style and profound thoughts, which has a significant impact on human history in the first half of the 19th century. he not only promoted the development of tanks and radars, could fly airplanes, but also foresaw the invention of television and mobile phones. such talents are difficult to appear under the social system of the east, which is also worthy of people's deep thought.

third, find spiritual support through wide-ranging reading.during my undergraduate studies, the person who had the greatest influence on my personal spiritual development was professor qian liqun. his classes were always packed with people. many people, including me, were recording. listening to professor qian talk about lu xun was the most unforgettable spiritual enjoyment for me. my understanding of lu xun's works and his spiritual world all depended on what i learned in professor qian's class. although i personally turned more to mr. hu shi in the future, my understanding of modern chinese literature was still thanks to professor qian. i have read most of the works of famous writers such as lao she, shen congwen, cao yu, fei ming, zhao shuli, and wang zengqi. i have also read a lot of articles by liang shuming, zhang zhongxing, qi gong and other masters. these experiences have made me realize that it is necessary to strive for survival in the world, but there is no need to pursue fame and fortune excessively. we should keep our minds open to explore the diverse lives and complex human nature.

people in the world are bustling about, and all the affairs in the world are for profit. this is sima qian's description of society. in the "records of the grand historian", in addition to emperors and generals, there are many people who sell pulp, which is precious. zhang zhongxing wrote more marginalized people in his books such as "miscellaneous notes on carrying the sun". reading history makes people wise and self-aware, and it allowed me to find myself as early as possible in college.

fourth, try to find academic support during your undergraduate studies.during my undergraduate studies, the books that had the greatest influence on me were lu jiandong's biography "the last twenty years of chen yinke" and mr. tian yuqing's famous book "the politics of the eastern jin dynasty's aristocratic clan". mr. chen yinke advocated "independent spirit and free thought", and intellectuals must encourage each other with him. the book "the politics of the eastern jin dynasty's aristocratic clan" made me see what a sharp historical eye, a sharp narrative and discussion, and the top academic level are. in the class of mr. tian's disciple, mr. yan buke, i learned what intellectual peace is. this academic level and scholarly temperament are something that people yearn for and benefit from for a lifetime.

fifth, you must learn to read, and read more chinese and foreign classics and english works and papers.for example, after reading the analects, one should also read the socratic dialogues written by plato, knowing that the dialogue form is a common form of classical chinese and foreign literature. however, in plato's dialogues, the conceptual analysis and deduction conducted through the mouth of socrates are missing in chinese tradition. there are also differences between the teacher-student relationship in ancient greece and that in the analects, which are points that need to be recognized and thought about while reading. i recommend that you read more of laozi, zhuangzi, and mencius. laozi's thoughts reflect a high degree of skepticism, zhuangzi left future generations with the pursuit of spiritual freedom, and mencius asked people to resist the king and be great men, rather than slaves of anyone. these ideological legacies can be connected with the freedom of thought and speech advocated by modern society, while the future development of chinese society has suppressed the development of these legacies. to read and think, we must return to the "axial age" of the development of chinese thought.

to understand the paper, you can first understand how to write it. in this regard, you can refer to the "three books on historical studies" by yan gengwang, a famous historian and disciple of mr. qian mu. in his preface, he mentioned that there are two methods for writing historical articles: evidence-based (conclusions can be reached by comparing materials) and dialectics (penetrating all holes: to establish an argument, you must attack other people's arguments; to fill in the gaps: to make your own views stand firm and impeccable). the writing method he proposed can guide our reading. in his book "the united states and the end of the cold war", john lewis gaddis, a master of american cold war history, demonstrated how to construct a paper framework using deduction and comparison, and reminded students to be careful not to make anti-historical conclusions, confuse cause and effect, or be separated from the specific historical background. the articles and works of yang kuisong, a well-known contemporary expert on the history of the communist party of china and the founding of the people's republic of china, and shen zhihua, a historian of the history of sino-soviet relations and the cold war, are no less than those of western scholars. they are role models for us to learn from in terms of the selection of archives, the consistency of logic and history, the interlocking of links, and the ultimate breaking of clichés and awakening the deaf. here is just one example: shen zhihua's "bombardment of kinmen: the soviet response and sino-soviet differences".

the papers of famous scholars in modern china and the west are worth pondering and training our own thinking and writing. after reading more, we will find that every paragraph of the papers of great scholars has a design and a method running through them. there are endless good books and articles in the world. i hope everyone will not stop at a superficial level and return empty-handed after entering the treasure mountain of university.

sixth, general education is inseparable from the learning and mastering of foreign languages.i didn't dare to dream of going abroad because of my family's financial situation, but my interest in english never faded. i once picked up the original text of dickens' novels, tried to look up the dictionary, and translated a few paragraphs myself. the result was of course that i became more self-aware. i also learned french. learning more may open a new window for myself. because of learning french, i increased my interest in understanding french history. i read charles de gaulle's war memoirs and mr. zhang zhilian's research on french history, which will always be beneficial to my future studies.

4. position yourself and plan for the future as early as possible

in general, during my undergraduate studies, i was not interested in the courses in my department. i often skipped classes and audited courses in other departments. i was not a "good student". the advantage of such self-general education is that it increases a person's spiritual foundation, but the disadvantage is that it makes people's energy scattered and difficult to concentrate on breakthroughs. so when i took the postgraduate entrance examination in the department of philosophy before graduation, i failed because of the short preparation time and weak foundation. after working for a year, i returned to my department for postgraduate studies. after so many years, i have no interest in philosophy. i only remember the teachings of mr. feng qi, a disciple of mr. jin yuelin and a professor at east china normal university: pursue a free personality for the common people, and strive to transform knowledge into wisdom in learning and life experience.

many of my classmates also relied on this kind of self-general education to change their majors, study abroad, or find a satisfactory career after graduating from graduate school by auditing, taking electives, or self-studying courses in other departments. self-general education and proactive change are the general rules for coping with adversity during college.

when i was an undergraduate, i was not able to understand max weber's books, and i had no other intuitive understanding of bureaucracy and bureaucratic society except school administration. it was only later in my work that i gradually gained more knowledge about the bureaucracy's control over society and the destruction of human nature by the unit system. this is also related to the fact that i personally did not take the initiative to learn more from my seniors, so everyone should develop some connections in college and learn more from the pioneers in order to have a smooth life and avoid detours in job hunting in the future.

five words of advice to you: be optimistic, positive, proactive and have integrity

the purpose of reviewing my own and my classmates' undergraduate studies and life is to provide some mirrors for the new generation of college students, hoping that you can have fewer regrets, no regrets, and fewer detours in your college life. in "letter to ren an", sima qian proposed that the purpose of his writing "historical records" was to "narrate the past and think about the future". narrating the past and thinking about the future is exactly my purpose. please do not be disturbed by some gray marks in this article, and be optimistic and actively involved in college life. i recommend everyone to read mr. liang shuming's oral account of "will this world be better?" in his later years. this old man who studied both confucianism and buddhism experienced many hardships and ups and downs in his life, but he firmly believed that the world would be better. understanding his life's deeds and persistence will increase the determination of later generations to face the complex world.

looking back on our undergraduate life, we also hope that those who come after us will realize that society is becoming increasingly complex and people’s minds are more difficult to guess. we should try to avoid risks in study and life, calm down, work hard for our own long-term development goals, and not fight for gains and losses at a certain time and place. we should not expect to change others, but first enrich our own knowledge, increase our own abilities, expand our own network, and try our best to plan our future careers so that we can develop smoothly.

however, i also hope that the new generation of college students will have enough humanistic cultivation, have a bottom line in doing things, and not harm others for their own benefit in the increasingly complex exchange of interests. you must be both proactive and defensive. because you are the hope and pillars of this society and this country, and you are the sun at eight or nine o'clock.