novelnext Chapter 535: Rising to Fame
Chapter 535: Rising to Fame
One day at the end of May, Xu Tianlei excitedly ran to the study room to find Qiao Hongbo.
"Senior brother, you've passed! You've passed!"
Immediately, everyone in the study room glared angrily at the loud and boisterous Xu Tianlei, and Qiao Hongbo quickly gestured for Xu Tianlei to be quiet.
When Xu Tianlei saw that everyone else in the study room was looking at him with displeasure, he quickly put his hands together in apology.
He strode over to Qiao Hongbo, plopped down next to him, and said excitedly.
"Senior, our graduation thesis has passed the external review."
Hearing this good news, Qiao Hongbo was naturally very happy.
"Really? How did you know?"
Xu Tianlei glanced around and lowered his voice, saying, "I was just in the teacher's office when he received a call from the academic affairs office saying that all of our graduation theses have passed external review. He asked me to pass this news on to you guys. However, Feng Ze and Jing Lan went to Shidai, and Yue Dongxue and Kong Hao went to Shanghai Dan for campus recruitment and haven't returned yet. I knew you were here, so I came to tell you first."
Upon hearing this news, Qiao Hongbo couldn't sit still any longer and immediately stood up: "Let's go, let's go out and make a call to the four of them, and celebrate together tonight."
Qiao Hongbo was so happy because, according to regulations, graduate theses must undergo external review before the thesis defense, also known as blind review or external review.
In simple terms, the thesis is submitted to external experts for anonymous review. Only those who pass the review are eligible to participate in the graduation thesis defense. If it fails, it needs to be revised and resubmitted for review.
All of them passed the external review, which means that they can participate in their graduation thesis defense soon.
As Xu Tianlei walked with Qiao Hongbo outside, he whispered smugly, "I knew we'd pass. Look who helped us revise our papers! With our professor involved, those external experts have no chance of finding fault!"
Qiao Hongbo nodded in agreement with Xu Tianlei's words.
Although Xu Tianlei's personality was somewhat unconventional, what he said was true. His teacher now held a certain position in the world of economics. Not to mention, recently, major investment banks around the world, such as Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, UBS Group, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Capital, and BNP Paribas, had all sent people to contact his teacher.
UBS even offered a six million dollar annual salary to hire the professor as their chief economic analyst.
Other major investment banks offered a variety of conditions. Some American investment banks were particularly arrogant, even promising the teacher's entire family US green cards and citizenship, not to mention villas, estates, and paid vacations.
Having discussed the reactions from the financial sector, let's now turn to the academic community. In the past few days, the university's external relations department has been extremely busy. World-renowned universities, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Princeton, London School of Economics, Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, University of Bonn, Tilburg University, and Paris School of Economics, have all contacted us to request partnerships with our university.
Even more extreme, some have directly extended invitations to professors to serve as economics professors in Europe and America. Although the benefits and salaries are far less than those offered by some investment banks, those universities are the dream destinations for many economists!
For this reason, Dean Zhuang sat in the teacher's office for an entire afternoon, and came again the next day with the school leaders, his implication being that the teacher must stay.
Fortunately, the teacher had no intention of leaving the school, which put the school leaders and Dean Zhuang at ease for the time being.
So during this period, the school leaders and Dean Zhuang were experiencing both pain and joy. On the one hand, because of the teacher, a huge windfall fell from the sky and landed on the school's head. The world's top economics universities all proposed to exchange and cooperate with the school.
Secondly, there's the concern that it's not the theft itself that's worrisome, but the thief's eye on it. As the saying goes, "If you swing your hoe well, you can dig down any wall." If one day a teacher is tempted by someone's offer, the school will suffer a huge loss.
Because the teacher was highly regarded, his students, including myself and Xu Tianlei, also received preferential treatment from the school. Even though we were about to graduate, they were moved to the international student dormitory, which consisted of single apartments with air conditioning, private bathrooms, and 24-hour hot water. It was much better than the graduate student dormitory we used to live in, even though we had never lived in the graduate student dormitory under the teacher's care.
The school's approach is clearly an effort to win over teachers to stay, leaving the teachers speechless. The teachers have said more than once that they will not leave for the time being, but perhaps it is because they have used the word "for the time being" that the school is still hesitant to completely put their minds at ease.
As Qiao Hongbo and Xu Tianlei walked through the campus, red banners hung everywhere, particularly eye-catching ones that read, "Warmly congratulate our renowned economics professor Huang Xiaochuan on being nominated for the John Bates Clark Medal."
Huang Xiaochuan was nominated for the award for his authoritative and pioneering research on the causes of the internet technology bubble and its bursting. It is unclear whether he will win the award, but even just being nominated is a remarkable achievement in China's academic circles at that time.
"Old Jiao, thank you so much! If it weren't for your hard work, Feng Ze and Duan Jinglan might not have passed the CET-6 again."
The two people Huang Xiaochuan mentioned were his students. Because they both came from rural areas with relatively weak basic education, they were far behind others in English. They could pass the CET-4 (College English Test Band 4) by rote memorization of vocabulary, but the CET-6 (College English Test Band 6) was much more difficult. For outstanding urban students who had received systematic education, this kind of test was naturally a piece of cake, but it was a bit troublesome for Feng Ze and Duan Jinglan.
Fortunately, they had a teacher named Huang Xiaochuan, who had ways to solve this kind of problem. Of course, he didn't use connections or back channels to get them through; instead, he privately asked their former English major teacher, Jiao Zhiyong, to give them extra tutoring.
The two then passed the CET-6 (College English Test Band 6). Huang Xiaochuan was naturally very happy that they were able to pass smoothly, so he specifically expressed his gratitude to Jiao Zhiyong.
Upon hearing Huang Xiaochuan thank him, Jiao Zhiyong's face fell, and he said with displeasure, "Xiaochuan, are you being distant with me? What's our relationship? Is this little thing worth thanking me for? Besides, aren't your students just like my students?"
Upon hearing this, Huang Xiaochuan shoved a cup of tea into Jiao Zhiyong's hand: "I was wrong, okay?"
Jiao Zhiyong then laughed and said, "That's more like it."
After taking a sip of tea, Jiao Zhiyong said, "Xiao Chuan, actually, if anyone should thank you, it should be me, Lao An, Lao Ma, and a few others. Let's not talk about the distant past. A while ago, our online game company was attacked by hackers. If it weren't for your phone call to Zhang Xiangguang, which brought in a team of reinforcements to help us solve the problem, Lao An and I might have ended up in the Huangpu River."
And that's not all. The cybersecurity director of Soso.com even promised to train professional cybersecurity personnel for us, and Soso.com didn't charge us a single penny. They basically just had us cover the team's food and lodging expenses in Shanghai. Wasn't all of this done because of your influence?
Huang Xiaochuan waved his hand with a smile: "Alright, forget about saving face. In the end, I also have shares in the online game company. Helping you guys is helping myself. You don't need to thank me, Lao Jiao."
Jiao Zhiyong put down his teacup and said with emotion, "Xiao Chuan, when we started with the computer training class, you gave us ideas and money. We three remember how much support you gave us! If it weren't for you supporting us, how could we have achieved what we have today? To be honest, if I hadn't met you, I might still be a struggling teacher. But now I drive a car, live in a big villa, have a wife and kids, and I can confidently say that I'm a winner in life."
Huang Xiaochuan waved his hand with a smile: "That's too much! Lao Jiao, are you planning to hold a 'bitter past and sweet present' meeting in front of me today? The company has grown from a training class to its current scale, and you and Lao An have made great contributions. I did contribute a little at the beginning, and later I didn't ask for anything, did I? Don't flatter me."