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on september 29, lin mengjie’s circle of friends is about to enter the most exciting moment of the year.

every year, this day is jokingly called "research fellowship day" by college students. starting from the morning, the results of recommended graduate students will be released one after another. as the prospective graduate students one after another post their admission offers and start saying "thank you, thank you~", lin mengjie's circle of friends will be flooded with a sense of ritual.

lin mengjie is a liberal arts student at a 211 university and is a senior this year. at this time last year, she was still mixed with envy and jealousy. she manually replied "congratulations" to her seniors while scrolling through her mobile phone, until she "got tired of typing these two words" and fell into confusion about her future.

the collective carnival seems to belong only to the victors. the opposite of those flamboyant or restrained victory speeches is the abjection of more students who failed to secure postgraduate entrance examinations and felt "pushed off the cliff". lin mengjie said that some students could not accept the results and even chose to commit suicide.

obviously,graduate school has become the primary way out for undergraduates.in june 2024, the enrollment rate of undergraduate graduates from at least 11 chinese universities reached or exceeded 70%. at the same time, the scale of postgraduate enrollment is constantly expanding, and there are already 28 "double first-class" universities across the country that have more postgraduate students than undergraduates. many research universities also announced this summer that they would extend the postgraduate academic system for many majors by one year.

i remember that at a class meeting in 2023, when lin mengjie’s counselor asked how many people were taking the postgraduate entrance examination, two-thirds of the class raised their hands. lin mengjie was deeply shocked by that scene, and at the same time she was also sweating. there were 4.74 million people who applied for the postgraduate entrance examination that year, but only 760,000 people were recruited.this means that probably 90% of the students who raised their hands will fail.

however, lin mengjie is the most competitive one. in terms of academic performance, she is ranked number one in her major. in her junior year, she was almost certain that she could be "recommended to graduate school." however, as the "recruitment day" in 2024 approached day by day, this top student became more and more panicked - the admission to graduate school was not only based on grade points, but also there are scientific research, competitions, and social practice... in the words of my senior sister, "it's best to take one paper for everything."

as a result, lin mengjie, who thought she had escaped the college entrance examination, fell into a more cruel "war of examination kings" in colleges and universities: "extra points" became the biggest bait in her college career.top students can take "special classes" for it, participate in competitions they don't like, and even donate blood; "backstabbing" and "reporting" in dormitories are common means of competition;during the "finals" of the year when lin mengjie competed for a postgraduate placement, she was always filled with extreme anxiety, acid reflux, and crying for no reason.

she said that she lived her college career as a "resume" and that no matter how much she liked things in her heart, she would rationally and accurately eliminate things that were useless for postgraduate studies from her life. everything made her even more confused. she often didn't know why she was working so hard, but she felt like she had no way to retreat.

here's what she had to say.

it was during the class meeting of my senior year in high school that i heard about "guaranteed graduate school" for the first time. the face of mr. wu, who had graduated at that time, filled the entire screen of the electronic whiteboard. in the video, he told us how to proceed after the college entrance examination. everyone listened attentively.

he said that you can only apply to one school for the postgraduate entrance examination, which is more terrifying than the college entrance examination. if you don’t want to go through the “college entrance examination” again after four years (college), it’s best to work harder and get admitted to a university with a higher retention rate.

my grades have always been good, but i never want to go through the college entrance examination again. when filling out my application form, i made a list of the retention rates of all the candidate schools, and finally got admitted to a school with a retention rate of nearly 20%.

unexpectedly, i was involved in a longer and more brutal war.

before the college entrance examination, students were ranked according to their test scores and the evaluation system was very clear. when you get to university, you should not only look at grades (study performance), but also competitions, scientific research, social practice, english proficiency, cultural and sports activities, and certificates. the performance of undergraduates in each dimension will be converted into scores by the school. every year, everyone's total score will be re-ranked, and only the former will have a guaranteed postgraduate spot.

grade points have the heaviest weight, but in our school, students who enter the postgraduate candidate list can basically get a grade point of 3.9 (out of 4.0), and the difference between the two before and after them is only 0.01 points at most. to widen the gap, one must compare others in other dimensions. however, the scoring rules for other dimensions are different every year, every school, and every college, and they are not open and transparent.my senior advised me: to be on the safe side, you'd better become a "hexagon warrior" and roll everything up.

in summary, i have customized a strict research strategy for myself: while maintaining performance points, i will join the "octopus" list.

in order to ensure that my grades are close to full marks, i have become an extreme "risk averse" and directly gave up on all courses that i was not sure about getting a 4.0. i would rather take "water courses" than take courses that interest me and where i can learn something useful. good lesson. my "ignorance" in my first year of college only caused myself more pain.at that time, i chose a writing class that i was very interested in, but the teacher only gave me a score of 88, which lowered my grade point average. later, i learned from the painful experience and completely deprived myself of my "freedom to choose courses."; if teachers of some compulsory courses have a tradition of giving low marks, i have to take measures to proactively reduce the risk - i always sit in the front row during class, and i update my memo with "face-grabbing skills" to ask questions to teachers at any time, even on holidays. send different exclusive "blessing words" to each teacher in order to add some "impression points" to yourself.

the next step is to apply for as many competitions as possible and go out for internships to gain social experience. in order to win various internships,the different resumes i prepared have been changed to version 37…every day i arrange my time around research, measured in hours. i completely said goodbye to going to bed early and getting up early, and postponed my bedtime until after 2 a.m.. my roommate a-xuan is the "lighthouse" in the dormitory all year round. her bedside lamp was the last to go out, but slowly i found that several nights, after finishing all the things reared their heads, and the "lighthouse" ah xuan also went out - i became the last person to go to bed.

i am indeed very anxious every day. when i feel anxious, i check social media to see the information about insurance research. by the time i browse, the algorithm has automatically covered the entire interface with “public research”. one day i saw a post saying,universities must have "resume thinking". in short, it means treating university as a resume: in everything you do, you must think about whether it can be put on the resume and whether it can gain points for postgraduate studies.i think this sentence sums up the essence of my two-year "volume" very well.

in fact, in the first semester of my freshman year, when i found out that there were only two or three places for postgraduate study in my class, i thought that i would run out of books to study. i also thought about giving up postgraduate study and considering getting a job after graduating from undergraduate degree.

but one day when i was checking social media, i saw that among the admission lists of several national-prefixed units, none of them were undergraduates. later, when i interned in a certain unit, my teacher told me that six fresh graduates here were competing for a regular spot, and the minimum the academic qualifications are all 211 masters;even in my hometown, a small county with a gdp ranking in the bottom dozen among hundreds of counties in a certain province, the recruitment of middle school teachers requires a master's degree.

i knew that i had no way out. not going to graduate school would be acknowledging that i was a "loser" in the university competition.

if you want to compete for postgraduate qualifications, extra points are your lifeline. someone on social media joked, "when i hear extra points, my dna moves." i feel the same way.

i remember when we first entered the freshman year, our student union organized some classic reading activities. normally, most students would find it boring.however, as long as "with comprehensive test bonus points" is marked in a prominent position in the push message, a large number of people will flood into the event consultation group.. i saw some schools saying that you can get extra points by participating in the "welcome new students" work. there are people who register new students in the dormitory in the morning, carry the backpacks of junior students and carry suitcases on their shoulders in the afternoon without complaining; i heard that you can get extra points by taking the exam. , some people have listed a bunch of certification plans since their freshman year, including cet-4 and cet-6, mandarin, computer, junior accounting, teacher qualification certificate (some students even posted to ask if they can get extra points for applying for a marriage certificate)...

i still keep immersing myself in the game because there are so many extra points. from march to july every year, the official website of the china higher education association will publish a competition directory, with a total of more than 80 competitions. experience posts on social media say that you must participate in more competitions so that you have a higher probability of winning prizes. moreover, you must participate in competitions that your competitors participate in, because if you participate less than them, you may fall behind in the ranking of postgraduate students.

in the second semester of my freshman year, during the time when i was applying for the "challenge cup" chinese college student entrepreneurship plan competition, campus assistant (a school activity information summary platform) was full of posts about "looking for teammates" and "asking for salvage", and the main content was introductions. find out what skills you have and what you want to form a team with. i posted a complaint on social media at that time, "i feel like i don't deserve to be alive if i don't participate in the challenge cup."

at that time, i still focused on academic performance. it was only in my sophomore year that i discovered that all my competitors had already participated in three or four large-scale innovation projects (a type of scientific research competition), and some were just doing odd jobs in the participating groups. this way you can add a lot of points and gain some competition experience. i feel like i can't do it and i'm falling behind.in the 3 months since the second semester of my sophomore year, i participated in 2 competitions as a team leader and 5 competitions as a team member.

only after i actually participated did i realize that there was no such thing as an easy job. every day, in addition to doing homework in class, i had to seamlessly switch identities back and forth among seven groups. this work was combined with preparing papers, english exams, and subject assignments. , i have to turn on the "hell mode".

when i was busiest, i couldn't remember the last time i washed my hair. the curled hair stuck to my scalp messily. at that time, my uncle sent me a box of cantaloupe, and it stayed quietly in the corner of my dormitory for a week. every time i noticed it when i passed by, i would think: i am a bit busy today, so i will definitely open it and eat it tomorrow. as a result, the corner will be there more than ten days later. it started to smell sour, and when i opened the box, seven or eight small bugs rushed out to me. there was a thick layer of cocoons on the cantaloupe, and some black things were squirming.

i feel like i have grown up in the school library. at 10:20 in the evening, the lights in the library have to be turned off to rush out people. i rushed back to the dormitory in 10 minutes and sat in the corridor for a meeting to discuss the progress of the game. it lasted two hours; the team members were so busy that they were physically i only had time to eat one meal in one day of the semester; the deadline for submitting works for a competition coincided with the cet-6 exam. the night before the exam, i was still rushing to submit my entries in the early hours of the morning. as expected, i failed the cet-6 exam and failed. i got the score line that can add the highest score. every time i think about it, i feel depressed that i didn't arrange the time well.

when i was a sophomore, i took a sociology course. the teacher had short, sleek hair and was accurate and ruthless when explaining complex concepts. once she talked about durkheim's "anomie" and explained that this concept refers to the rupture between the cultural goals advocated by society and the institutionalized means in reality, resulting in implementation chaos and social pathology. then she suddenly sighed,some students donated blood multiple times in order to improve their comprehensive test scores, which is really "out of character".

the whole class started laughing and shaking their heads, "it's too curly, it's too curly." i laughed too. but at the same time, my ears also caught the keyword "comprehensive test": it turns out there is a shortcut to extra points. after class, i studied the bonus points document immediately and found out that among the bonus points for social activities, there was an item that said voluntary blood donors could gain 20 points that year. what is the concept of 20 points? i worked in the student union for a whole year in my freshman year and only gained 20 points.

later, two classmates from the competition group and i went out for research. just ten steps out of the subway entrance, we saw a small red shed in the distance with the words "blood donation station" printed on it.a classmate's eyes suddenly lit up, and he swept away his sleepiness, dragging us towards the blood donation station.i asked: why are you all so interested in donating blood? another classmate grabbed my finger and pointed it with an "why don't you understand this" look on his face and said: "you can get extra points!" his tone was full of hatred for the inability to be strong.

in fact, there are many posts on social platforms about extra points for donating blood. netizen @石槑 on xiaohongshu described the situation outside the blood donation van near campus in order to get extra points. it was “crowded” and “crowded with college students.” that’s because “ donating blood is more cost-effective.” i hesitated over and over again, but i still didn’t donate blood - i searched for the guide, and it said that girls are required to weigh more than 90 pounds.i only weigh over 70 pounds and have been diagnosed with anemia twice.。

by my junior year, i was still competing. the game was finally over, and my roommate had just congratulated me on being "finally liberated." but when i scrolled through my moments, the screen was full of "xx competition team recruitment!" and i couldn't help but sign up again.

when i was busiest, a senior from the project team asked me for the ddl form for june, hoping to arrange the work i could do according to my time. after i sent it, she was shocked:in 30 days, 5 exams, 13 papers and reports, 5 competitions, and other tasks including reimbursement, resume for internship, etc. need to be completed.she said to me,may you live.

it was too painful to add points in the competition. later, i actually heard that there are "shortcuts". for example, if you can join the "ancestral project" and repackage the materials that your seniors and seniors have won in the previous year and submit them, you will have a high chance of getting it. prize, easily.

in fact, in the second year after i won an award for a project i participated in a competition as the person in charge, some junior students came to me and asked, "will this project be done again this year?" this meant asking me if i was willing to add to the existing project. i wanted to make some updates to the structure of the entry materials before submitting to the competition, but i refused.

i hate competitions, and if it weren't for the bonus points i wouldn't participate in any competitions.

there are so many undergraduates competing for postgraduate entrance examinations that there is a large market for paid services: there is full-process follow-up tutoring, as well as segmented services such as thesis publication tutoring, patent application, and summer camp mock interviews.

a friend told me,more than a dozen students in the class paid several thousand yuan in registration fees to submit their abstracts to an international academic conference, and then spent tens of thousands of yuan to fly overseas to attend the conference.. once when i went out to eat, i heard a boy in my class asking a senior student who had successfully secured a graduate degree if it was necessary to sign up for the institution's scientific research tutoring class. listen again,the tuition fee for one semester is more than 10,000 yuan.i couldn't help but interject: why don't you just go grab the money?

although purchasing services is a matter of "you are willing to fight, you are willing to suffer", but there may be "false" routines hidden in the service content, and the organization may be a "grassroots team", and the insurance research information we know is not as accurate as our own.

senior sister qin qi told me,there are classmates around me who want to save trouble and directly ask the agency to write a software for applying for a patent. the fee ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 yuan.however, this kind of behavior is obviously academic misconduct. once discovered and reported, the qualifications for research study will be directly revoked.

i met liu xiaozhou, who is also a senior, on social platforms. she majored in administration at a dual-africa university. she once consulted the teacher at the institution about how to choose a postgraduate school. these teachers all believed that "double non-fee" was not easy to operate. some suggested that she apply for a master's degree from a low-ranking 211 university, but she was restricted in applying for civil servants and other positions. some told her that it was too late to start and suggested going abroad. some even said that she would only need to she gave her "enough money" and promised to help her publish the paper within a month, and the price was based on the journal's level.

liu xiaozhou said,at that time, i was almost deceived by the institution. i always thought that no school would take a fancy to me.. but later she worked on her own, passed the screening of 211 pre-referral application materials from three universities, and got the interview notice.

i saw that china youth daily also reported on institutional chaos in august this year, saying that “some off-campus postgraduate tutoring institutions use anxiety marketing to gain more customers” and “some institutions are not clear about the latest postgraduate study situation, and a lot of information is completely it is wrong and misleading."

i didn't spend any money to find any guidance from an agency, but i paid several hundred yuan to get my essays corrected by a senior schoolmate. at that time, i was in the stage of submitting application materials for "summer camp" to major colleges and universities. the senior sister commented that my resume was one of the best among the 40 people she had revised, and she thought it would be "relatively safe" for me to at least get into fudan university's summer camp. as a result, fudan did not give me the opportunity to participate in the summer camp, and other schools also rejected my application one after another. later, when it came to the pre-recommendation and interview-free application stage, i inquired in many places, and my friend told me that there were many places for graduate students this year, but the number of postgraduate students in good schools was not expanded. the competition was fierce, and many schools refused to apply for the 985 program. at that time, i felt that no one could really "coach" you to secure a graduate degree. there were too many uncertainties in the process.

in addition to the rules that change from time to time,any minor accident may declare you "failed" at any time. for example, forgetting to finish an online class within the prescribed time and lowering your grade point, failing the cet-6, or using illegal electrical appliances in the dormitory.

liu xiaozhou said that in her school, it is very common to be reported. some of her classmates who were admitted to graduate school in the same class were reported to have cheated. the first place in the previous class could have been admitted to jiangnan university because they were he reported the use of illegal electrical appliances in the dormitory and lost his postgraduate placement. last year, she herself was reported by her classmates, saying that she used the awards she won in school-level competitions to apply for extra points in provincial-level competitions, causing her to almost lose her qualifications for postgraduate study. she had always felt that she was very popular, and after much deliberation she could not guess who reported it.

in addition to reporting, there are also people who wrote long articles on social media accusing themselves of being "backstabbed" by their roommates. for example, my roommate said that he was going abroad and had been preparing for ielts. this person did not regard the other person as a competitor at all. when the final ranking was approaching, an essay from the roommate came out, which "confused me all." the roommate's essay was added after the score, he happened to be ranked in front of himself. there were only four guaranteed graduate places. this person ranked fifth and was out.

there are many similar discussions on social media. some bloggers suggested that students should never mention the progress of their participation in the competition for postgraduate study, and not post content about postgraduate study in their circle of friends to avoid being caught by interested parties. as for me, since i learned that using illegal electrical appliances can cause someone to lose their place in the postgraduate program, i have never used a hair dryer in the dormitory.

i still remember in the article "2557 days with hengshui middle school", the author described the details of picking up express delivery before preparing for the college entrance examination: after queuing for two minutes at the entrance of the rookie station, i said to myself, enough is enough, i can't waste any more time.

this is actually the detail of my postgraduate life - anything that cannot be included in my resume and is not conducive to adding points is regarded as a waste of time by me. if the thing at hand enters the "waiting time", then i have to do something else at the same time to feel at ease; if i want to step out of the dormitory door to eat, i must first pick up the express delivery and calculate the shortest time to finish everything. path;once i start doing things that interest me, such as reading novels and painting, i will have a strong sense of shame and insecurity.

in fact, when i was in junior high school, i was very interested in the ancient subculture circle. many people who were passionate about traditional chinese culture gathered together to create ancient music and literary works. i made a lot of friends and would write letters to each other. it was at that time that i learned to write metrical poetry. at that time, i specially translated mr. wang li's "metric of poetry" to study it. i also opened a post on baidu tieba to write ancient style paragraphs and short novels. after each chapter was written, it was circulated in the class with great dignity. i even tried to serialize it on the website, and there was a dedicated editor for the connection.

as a result, my grades plummeted in the final exam of the first semester of junior high school, and i dropped to the top 20th place in the class. i will never write novels again, and i also issued a "retirement statement" in qq space. later, when i mentioned my time in the first grade of junior high school to my classmates, i described myself as "not reading" at that time.

once i got to college, i didn’t even know how to introduce myself to my dorm roommates because all my interests had come to a standstill. i only wrote two poems in total during college. one was written because i was too bored during military training, and the other was submitted to the college journal in my sophomore year for extra points. later, the books i read were either for the sake of "matching up" with the teacher, or they could be used as "talking points" during job interviews.i'm far away from "like" and "dislike", it's all "useful" and "useless".

later, i discovered a douban group called "good student mentality victim". after joining, i was "diagnosed" with three typical symptoms: accelerated involution; self-pua master; and trapped in the cage of the self. some media interpret the cultural phenomenon behind this group,it is said that top students are usually addicted to the "good student script", live in the shadow of others' evaluations, and lose themselves.the reason may be that children are put in a group situation, watched by each other, stared at by authorities, and then constantly compared with each other, "you must be able to tell whether you are good or bad."

in fact, my family has always had high expectations for me. my parents, grandparents, and grandparents all firmly believe that "the only way to achieve success is by studying." of course, reading here does not include reading books for leisure. in my family, reading books that have nothing to do with academic work is regarded as not doing the right job and a serious sin. i still remember that after the junior high school exam, i was reading a novel in my room. my grandfather passed by the door. i would subconsciously close the book and he would stand at the door and sneer. that look made me feel looked down upon and hurt me deeply. until i went to college, when i bought books online to send home, my grandfather would ask me if it was related to my studies.growing up in such an environment, i felt that only those with better academic performance would be worthy of being liked.

gradually, "excellence" became a kind of inertia in my life. when i was a freshman in high school, a junior high school classmate asked me, what motivates you to study hard? i was in a key science class at the time, and i replied to him: everyone is very kind to me and always thinks highly of me. i can’t let everyone down.

i don’t know since when, people around me started to expect me to go to graduate school. my parents were always concerned about every exam and activity i took in college, as well as the progress of my competition for graduate school places. during the winter vacation of my sophomore year, some of my classmates and i went back to see our high school teachers. we talked about where we would go after graduation, and the teacher inadvertently made inferences. , you will definitely go to graduate school in the future. i was stunned for a moment.

over the years, a picture has always appeared in my mind: everyone is climbing up a bare pole like monkeys, with bananas placed on the top of the pole. whoever climbs higher can get the banana faster. in order to climb faster, some monkeys will start pushing and trying to squeeze other monkeys off the pole. the weak monkeys will be thrown to the ground one by one, and the strong ones will climb up by stepping on the limbs of other monkeys.

but then i always thought that the world is not linear. some monkeys are not good at climbing and can still make ends meet by digging through cracks in rocks.and why do you think bananas are a good thing? what if i find out at the end that i like apples?

a school girl who had just finished the college entrance examination came to inquire about the situation in my school. in the third sentence, she asked about the postgraduate retention rate. her question reminded me of the summer vacation when i applied for the college entrance examination. i realized that a new war of kings had begun again.

one night at 1:30 in my junior year, i was playing a game and i closed the document and went to wash up as usual. suddenly i felt acid reflux, a splitting headache, and many body senses that i had no energy to pay attention to were slowly struggling. lying in bed that night, a line of words suddenly popped into my head: "am i going to die?"

my acid reflux lasted for over a month and got worse. one day at nearly two o'clock in the morning, my throat was full of sourness, and a little juice came out of my esophagus, and i swallowed it again. this cycle continued, and i couldn't fall asleep while sitting or lying in bed, so i posted a message on moments. a friend who was just a freshman commented: the stomach is an emotional organ. keeping your emotions stable will make your stomach feel particularly good, really.

after going to the school hospital for medical treatment, i began to pay attention to my diet. after coming out of the cafeteria, my body went to the supermarket on the first floor like clockwork to buy high-sugar desserts and drinks. when i was catching up on various ddls in the early morning, my mouth kept chewing, which made me feel at ease in a daze, as if i had a disease of "i have to eat all the time otherwise i will be anxious." later i learned that this situation is called "emotional eating", which refers to eating to produce dopamine and calm oneself under stress and anxiety.

compared with my good friends who also need to undergo postgraduate studies, my condition is not serious.she was diagnosed with thyroid nodules and breast nodules when she was in high school. the reason was long-term qi depression., and it hasn’t improved yet.

the most painful day every year is when the comprehensive score rankings are released. my senior sister qin qi can even recite nearly 50 rules for postgraduate study from the previous year. she also made several tables to calculate points for the whole class based on comprehensive assessment results, activities, and positions to calculate her own ranking.during her most anxious period, as soon as she lay down, a large excel spreadsheet would automatically appear in her mind, calculating the scores of her classmates, and she could not sleep for an hour or two.the same happened to me. in my sophomore year, the rankings were still not released, and i began to panic. on the way to the library, i suddenly broke down and cried.

after studying for three years, my gpa was above 3.9, ranking first in the whole hospital. the comprehensive score ranking is not announced, but i estimated that i should be the first, and i successfully got the postgraduate placement.

however, this does not mean that the research is successful. because getting a spot means that your alma mater sends you out, and then you have to find a school that is willing to accept you as a graduate student. you have three opportunities to take the admission exams of each school: the first opportunity is the "summer camp" held by each college from march to june every year; the second opportunity is to apply for "pre-recommendation without interview"; the third opportunity is 9 on the 29th of the month, missed admission places will be made up.

these three opportunities are intertwined. sometimes missing the first one means that there is a high probability of failure in research protection. for example, summer camp exams include written tests and interviews. once you are rated as an "outstanding camper" by the school, you will be given "priority for admission" and may even receive an admission notice directly. there is also a rumor that if you are not rated as an "outstanding camper", it means you will be "rejected" and you will not have any chance to apply during the pre-exemption stage.

i lost the opportunity to be admitted to this school just because of a "mistake" i made in one sentence during the summer camp interview.

at that time, i had already obtained the "outstanding camper" status from two schools including dream school. when i attended our school's summer camp, the interviewer asked me, if we also gave you "outstanding campers", would you still consider coming to our school? my answer is: very likely.

this is my most honest answer, because if i could go to my dream school, i would not stay at this school.the interviewer asked again, are you coming or not? i hesitated and said: i will come.

in the end, i was not rated as an "outstanding camper" in our school. the two schools on the review may not have admission effect this year - this means that even if i get a postgraduate placement, no school may admit me in the end, and then the postgraduate admission will fail.

i felt miserable for days, constantly judging myself and comparing myself to others. i clicked on xiaohongshu, and the screen was still full of research content: university timeline planning, personal background (how many scientific research projects, how many competitions, and how many achievements). i started to take out my resume and compare it with my grades.i repeatedly compared my resume and grades with those of my friends from the top three schools. where did i go wrong? why can’t i reach the shore even though everyone around me has gone ashore?

is it possible that all the jobs i hold in the competition are design, while others have experience in running code and doing surveys? did i publish fewer papers? the more i compared it, the more i felt that my resume was really bad. i opened the paper i had written before and it was too bad.

later, when i thought back on everything i had experienced in the past three years, i discovered that the reason why i felt futile and involuted was,another important reason is that the rules for research protection are completely opaque.if everyone knows the rules for calculating scores, they can evaluate their own situation in advance and plan a more appropriate way out for themselves.instead of being like now, putting everything on the line and risking everything, but taking extremely high risks because of the temporary changes in the rules - once the paper fails to guarantee the postgraduate entrance examination, there will be no time to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination.

the not too bad news is that i later found a guaranteed school, although it was far from what i expected. roommate a once talked to me about how after the results of the college entrance examination were announced, he could finally sleep well and play around. roommate b immediately refuted her, saying that it was already conceivable that lin mengjie would immediately join her tutor's research group after she successfully passed the postgraduate entrance examination, and she would write her graduation thesis while looking for an internship, and continue to live a life of going to bed at two o'clock in the morning every day.

i suddenly remembered that before the college entrance examination, my parents and teachers would say that you will feel relaxed after the exam. many students think that the college entrance examination is the last exam in life. looking back now, i think this sentence was cruel and childish.

i talked to the teacher at the internship unit about the design process when i participated in the competition, and said that the team leader would always overturn it completely after i had completed the work, which was a waste of my labor. after hearing this, she laughed and said that it was very similar to the situation that migrant workers go through every day. i realized that these futile efforts to maintain research may be preparations for adapting to this huge and endless system.originally, i thought that continuing to study was a way to escape the system, and that the "graduate education festival" would be a party for survivors hiding in the ivory tower. but actually this is just the beginning.

in the past few years, i have fantasized over and over again about what kind of post i should make on the "international research day" in 2024. the answer is about to be revealed. i did get the opportunity to hide in the ivory tower, and finally got an offer from a guaranteed school during the pre-exemption stage, but it was far from my dream school.

i imagined that such an ordinary offer would be submerged in a bunch of screenshots of successful landings, and i would be judged and scrutinized by everyone again. and what is the point of the four years of college that i was squeezed out of? thinking of this, i feel a little nauseous again.

lin mengjie, qin qi, and liu xiaozhou are pseudonyms in the article.

author yan qing｜ edit circumferential pleats

typesetting wei wei

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