Tomorrow my dear graduation ceremony is going to take place. Yeah, after 10 months works, finally it reaches the end. At the end, it is hard to say that I am exciting – instead, I want to look back at the past months rather than imagine the future at this moment.

In terms of teachers, as the timeline goes, Lugosi, Ghazala, Thijs/Gino, Massimo/ Larbi, Davide…and more. I have enjoyed so many great courses despite some disappointing ones. Lugosi reconstructed my confidence in math – at least I can survive in real analysis! Thijs taught me more beyond his course materials – how to think, how to analyze real world problems, how to develop research ideas (hopefully I was not so annoying at that time…) and how to be patient. Interestingly, after macro, I picked micro II instead. You can say it was a turn, but in fact my ultimate goal of studying economics, ideally of course, is to link micro and macro more close to each other Massimo Motta was so amazing – clear about the course materials and patient with my random emails… I owe him a lot of thanks. Davide Cantoni, well, do I still need to mention his name any more on this blog? Economic history will stay as one of my best memory ever. Oh how can I forget development econ? I have learned so much from Ghazala~

Regarding papers, this year I have worked with several great Barcelona GSE colleagues to develop research ideas and formalize the frameworks. One on romantic relationship formation (partner matching) with Hrvoje Stojic who was so good at psychology and micro/behavior econ; one on social network and its applications to public health issues with Mahesh Karra, who served as an expert from the health perspective; last one by myself on economic history which talks about the financial innovation in historical China…plus another one oriented by a friend from another continent… The first half of this year was fully filled by papers and research inspirations. Although we could not finish each of them comprehensively and they look more like research proposals, the basic ideas show how much we have thought, exchanged ideas and challenged ourselves. In addition to the knowledge gained from classes and professors, the experience of cooperating with other talent people has also brought invaluable growth to me.

I am not sure what I am going to do in the second half of this year. This year started with a dismal situation, and sometimes it was pretty difficult for me to stand up after pains, finally time recovers everything. I will make a choice soon once I am back in China and meet necessary people to decide my future’s directions. Things are going as always, and after the journey only beautiful moments will stay as precious memories. After experienced the difficulty of life, I have realized how important it is to look ahead to the future. Growth is always an exciting process.