1. Farewell Lunch Speech
Wenyi Zhao
Good morning! Thanks for your coming to this farewell lunch. It’s my pleasure to share
some of my personal experience here with you.
For me, I am a person always optimistic and full of passion. The reason why I choose this
program is I wanted to gain experience on research in United States. I want to lean more
things, not because I want to enjoy me summer vacation in American, like those high
school student who came recently, I came here because I want to learn more things.
In NC State, I learnt how to conduct research effectively with brilliant faculty and smart
PhDs. In fact, before I came here I already contacted my advisor Dr. Edgar Lobaton and
knew the project topic I will conduct. At that time, since the project is basically related to
human activities recognition instead of computer vision, I did feel little bit worry about
whether I can do it. Therefore I start reading papers related with this topic at the beginning
of June. I even test the program on Matlab during my trip to Japan! Thus before I came
here, I already knew something in this area and started on working quickly, with no pain. I
met my professor almost everyday in the lab. Research became organized in the lab
because we have plan, we know each stage of our project and work on it step by step.
And finally we did make a success. I share this story to you because this is the first lesson
I learn from this summer in NC State. Whenever you want to do something well, you have
to be prepared of that. Thanks to Dr. Lobaton and ARoS lab, it’s my pleasure to work with
you guys these days.
In North Carolina, I also learnt how to enjoy my life, not only I cooked by myself in the
apartment, I walked around to see downtown Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. I also
attended two group activities of our lab, we went to pilot mountain and went playing paint
ball. I have to say that North Carolina is one of the best places I have ever been. I saw
beautiful sunset beside Raleigh Lake, I enjoyed the extremely hot waether when I walked
in the campus of Duke and Chapel Hill. I even saw fireflies shining along the way in wolf
ridge after I did my workout in that small gym in the midnight. The landscape is so fantastic
and I took bunch of photo and shared it on social network, I really appreciated that lots of
people liked them. Sometime life is not fair, but still it is good. Some people say that when
you work, you need to work hard. But I want to remind you guys here, when you play, you
also need to play hard. Enjoy your work and also your life; try your best to be happy
everyday. This is another important life lesson I learnt here.
For most of the student here, including me, we are all young people with dream, and if
everything goes smoothly, I believe our dreams will realize soon. So keep on chasing your
life goal, always look ahead, keep on leaning new things, talking with intelligent people,
and improve yourself to make the future. It’s my pleasure to know each of you. Hope our
path may cross again in the future, go packs, let’s do it!
Thanks!