Graduates | 吴之林：挑战“不可能”，圆直博之梦

流年似水，岁月如歌。今年，广东以色列理工学院迎来了首届毕业生。广以2017级本科毕业生系列采访将带大家一同聆听这四年来学生们与广以的故事，共同见证广以学子们的成长。今天分享的是生物技术与食品工程专业毕业生吴之林的故事。

姓名：吴之林

毕业高中：汕头市金山中学

本科专业：生物技术与食品工程

录取院校：希伯来大学医学院微生物专业，获直博优秀奖学金

获得奖项：

一开始，吴之林担心自己无法适应广以的全英教学。经过四年的锻炼，广以沉浸式的英文环境让她的英语能力有很大的提升。“我高中的英语成绩只是中等水平，但我觉得还是应该勇于尝试，给自己一个超越的机会，而且英语不管在以后的学习还是工作中都非常重要。”

之林表示，担心自己英语能力不过关、上课听不懂、不敢跟老师交流是她初进校园遇到最大的挑战，但通过努力是可以克服这些困难的。“我平时有空就背单词、看英文原版书籍，也在朋友圈完成过学习英语100天的打卡任务，让自己尽快适应英文的思维和表达方式。第一次不敢自己提问就叫上同学一起‘壮胆’，多几次就习惯了，后来发现其实提问也没有想象中那么难。”

之林告诉学弟学妹们，到了大学，自主学习能力尤为重要。“大学不像中学，没有人会监督你学习，一切都要靠自觉。老师不会把所有的知识都送到你的手上，因为上课时间有限而且知识太多了，我们遇到不懂的问题要学会自己找答案，不能糊弄过去。”

吴之林回想起大三“食品分析”这门课讲到关于食品法律法规的内容，老师上课讲的是欧美和以色列的安全标准和法律法规，但要求同学们在课后了解中国的相关情况。“我从一位长期从事食品法律法规相关工作的前辈那里了解到中国主要的食品安全标准和国内外标准的区别。这些知识在我后来的课程中，包括工厂设计、创业课、产品设计项目等都对我帮助很大。”之林鼓励学弟学妹们遇到不懂的问题要努力找到答案，说不定日后就会派上用场。

对于吴之林来说，广以是一个“挑战不可能”的圆梦之地。“我以前对自己不够自信，不相信自己的能力。来到广以之后，在大大小小的项目和演讲中，我尝试着勇敢提出自己的想法并努力去实现。每次‘闯关成功’，巨大的成就感会让我信心倍增。慢慢地，我发现原来自己也可以上限无限。”

之林曾构思过设计一个具有潮汕特色的老香黄小零食，但没有去实践过，觉得这对她来说是一件不可能完成的事。直到大四的产品设计项目上，她在小组讨论时尝试着提出了这个想法，受到组员们的认可。“我跟队友们讨论完善产品，没想到能得到老师的肯定。最终我们做出了成品老香黄夹心巧克力，味道还不错！”

之林用“简单的生活，忙碌的学习，满满的收获”来形容自己的大学生活。“这四年来，我大部分时间都花在学习上，基本是自习室图书馆和宿舍两点一线。但四年里学到了很多知识，跟同学交流讨论的过程也增进了我们的友谊，这对我来说才是最大的收获。”

一开始，之林简单地将食品科学理解为食材混合。经过四年的学习，她才发现自己当初是“不知而无知”。“食品科学领域包罗万象，从化学元素到营养物质，从能量传递到物质传递，从流体力学到包装材料，从产品设计到工厂设计再到创业市场规划，这些都是食品科学专业需要学习的内容。就连我们平时吃到的每一口零食也大有门道，背后蕴含了特别多的知识，任何一个性质的改变都可能创造出另外一个产品。食品科学其实也是一门高科技，利用普通的原材料和先进的工艺技术，就能创造出全新的产品。”

吴之林在广泛涉猎食品科学领域的同时，也在逐步探索自己感兴趣的方向，细化“深耕”的范围。

大二的时候，之林接触到“基础微生物学”和“食品微生物学”这两门关于微生物学的课程，对微生物这种小身躯有大能力的神奇生命产生了浓厚的兴趣。大二暑期，她在江南大学益生菌研究实验室实习的过程中，进一步了解到微生物与人类之间密不可分的关系及其重要作用。大三暑期，之林加入了广以梁嘉言教授的实验室，参与和微生物抗药性相关的课题学习。

心有所向便一往无前，之林在自己热爱的学海中如鱼得水。就这样，她和微生物学结下了不解之缘。在未来的求学之路，她也将继续投身于微生物的相关研究，和令她捉摸不透的神奇物种“斗智斗勇”。

吴之林在梁嘉言教授的课题组进行牛蛙养殖场细菌抗生素抗性的研究。他们从汕头当地牛蛙场采样，分析细菌种类、抗药性、基因转移等性质，以研究细菌抗性基因的获得、富集、传播和对人类生产生活的影响。

这段经历不仅让之林学到了研究实验的设计思路、思维方式和实验操作技能，更帮助她提前为今后枯燥漫长的科研生活做好心理准备。宝剑锋从磨砺出，梅花香自苦寒来。完整的实验并不只有一步关键操作，它离不开无数简单重复的前期准备工作和长时间的等待。“因为细菌生长需要时间，所以每个实验周期都比较长，基本需要两三天以上。有些实验操作步骤比较多，要从早上做到晚上。为了得到数据和理想结果，会有大量重复实验，比较枯燥无聊，但得到想要的结果的时候就很开心。”

在梁教授的推荐下，吴之林申请了希伯来大学医学院微生物学硕士项目并顺利通过面试。在得知有直博机会后，之林争取到优秀奖学金，硕士一年后考核成绩优秀即可转为直博。她希望自己能在科研的道路上保持初心，不断成长，日后学成归国。

The first cohort students were graduated from Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology this year. The series of interviews with the graduates from Class of 2021 will show their stories with GTIIT in the past four years. Here is the story about Wu Zhilin, a student of Class of 2021 from Biotechnology and Food Engineering Program.

Name: Wu Zhilin

High School: Jinshan High School, Shantou

Program: Biotechnology and Food Engineering

Received offers from: Microbiology in the School of Medicine, Hebrew University, and won the HUJI International PhD Talent Scholarship

Awards:

At first, Wu Zhilin feared that she couldn't adapt to GTIIT's English teaching environment. While four years later, her English ability has been greatly improved. "I'm not so good at English when I was in high school, but I think I should be brave and give myself a chance to be better. Besides, English is very important in my future study and work." 

Zhilin said that adapting to having classes and talking with teachers in English were the biggest challenges she encountered when she came to GTIIT, but these difficulties can be overcome with hard work. "I recite words and read original English books in my spare time, and also complete the task of learning English for 100 days continuously on a Wechat activity to adapt myself to English thinking as soon as possible. I didn't brave enough to ask questions for the first time, so I asked my friends to go together. Gradually, I got used to it, and found that asking questions is actually not so difficult as I thought it would be."

Zhilin tells the junior students that the ability to study independently is particularly important in the university. "University is not like high school. There is no one to supervise your study. The teachers will not give you all the knowledge, because the class is limited and there is too much to learn. So we have to learn to find the answer by ourselves." 

Wu Zhilin recalled that the course "Food Analysis" in her junior year. The teacher taught the food safety standards, laws and regulations of Europe, the United States and Israel, but asked students to learn about the regulations in China after class. "I learned about China's main food safety standards from my predecessor who has been working on food laws and regulations for a long time. This knowledge helped me a lot in my later courses, including factory design, entrepreneurship classes, product design projects, etc." Zhilin encourages the junior students to learn actively and independently, and overcome the challenges in study with hard work.

For Wu Zhilin, GTIIT is a place to realize her dream. "I wasn't confident enough and didn't believe in my ability previously. At GTIIT, I tried to put forward my own ideas bravely and make efforts to realize them in various projects and presentations. Every time I succeed, the great sense of achievement would make me more confident. " Zhilin once conceived the idea of designing a snack with Chaoshan characteristics, but did not practice it, thinking it was impossible for her to accomplish. On the product design project in her senior year, she tried to put forward this idea in the group discussion and it was recognized by the group members. "I didn't expect that my idea could be approved by my teammates and teacher. And finally we finished the product chocolate with bergamot, and it tastes good!"

Zhilin described her university life as "simple life, busy study and full of harvest". "In the past four years, I've spent most of my time on study, but I learned a lot, and the process of discussing with my classmates also enhanced our friendship, which is the biggest gain for me."

At first, Zhilin thought food science simply as mixing ingredients. After four years' study, she found that food engineering covered everything from chemical elements to nutrients, from energy transfer to material transfer, from fluid mechanics to packaging materials, from product design to factory design and entrepreneurship planning. Even every bite of snack we eat has a great deal of knowledge behind it, and any change in nature can create another product. "Food science is actually a high technology, using ordinary raw materials and advanced processes to create completely new products."

While Wu Zhilin has studied extensively in the field of food science, she is also exploring her own interests in this field gradually. 

In her sophomore year, Zhilin came into contact with two courses of microbiology, "Basic Microbiology" and "Food Microbiology", and developed a strong interest in microbes, the amazing life with great ability in small bodies. In the summer of her sophomore year, she worked as an intern in the Probiotics Research Laboratory of Jiangnan University, where she further learned about the close relationship between microbes and human beings and their important role. In the summer of her junior year, Zhilin joined Prof. Ka Yin Leung's research project at GTIIT, studying the topics related to microbial resistance. In her further study, she will continue to devote herself to the research of micro-organisms to explore the mysterious species.

Wu Zhilin participated in Prof. Ka Yin Leung's research group and study the "Transfer of Antibiotic Resistant and Virulent Genes in Water-borne Bacteria and the Potential Risk to One Health". They collected samples from local frog farms in Shantou to analyze the characteristics of bacterial species, drug resistance and gene transfer, so as to study the acquisition, enrichment, transmission of bacterial resistance genes and their effects on human production and life.

This experience not only enabled Zhilin to learn the experimental design and operation skills, but also helped her to prepare psychologically for the tedious scientific research life in the future. A complete experiment involves numerous simple and repetitive preparations and long waits. "Because it takes time for bacteria to grow, we need to spend a long time on each experiment, usually more than two or three days. Some experiments have more steps to take, so we need to be in the lab from morning to evening. There is a lot of repetition to get the data and the results we want. It's boring, but it's fulfilling when we made it finally."

On the recommendation of Prof. Ka Yin Leung, Wu Zhilin applied for the master program of Microbiology in the School of Medicine of Hebrew University and passed the interview successfully. She also won the HUJI International PhD Talent Scholarship, and got the chance to go straight into a doctorate program if she has a good performance in the assessment after the first year study of the master degree. Zhilin hopes that she can keep her original aspiration on the road of scientific research and return to China after studying.

文：GTIIT传媒与公共事务部

图：吴之林、GTIIT传媒与公共事务部

Text: GTIIT News & Public Affairs

Photos: Wu Zhilin, GTIIT News & Public Affairs