Challenge youth - Shanghai Fudan University Exchange

Gamify Your College Life: Try More, Experience More, Feel More, and Make It Wonderful | Department of Mechanical and Computer-Aided Engineering, Chun-Ta-Chi Tsou

In my sophomore year, I was honored to be accepted into the European Innovation Academy (EIA), the world’s largest student entrepreneurship competition, co-organized by Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Google, and other internationally renowned universities and companies. The 2024 event was held at the School of Economics, University of Porto, Portugal, and required participants to create a complete startup proposal that could impress investors within three weeks. During the process, I formed a multinational team with partners from the Netherlands, the United States, and Estonia. Together, we developed a minimum viable product for a smart bicycle tail light, which uses multiple sensors to detect the environment in real time, alerting riders and ensuring road safety.

Don’t Trap Yourself in a Box—The World Is Bigger Than You Think

It was during my internship at ASML that I began to seriously consider the possibility of studying abroad. Working in the IT department of this Dutch multinational, I was exposed to cross-departmental collaboration, process management, and systematic thinking. For the first time, I realized that work could be both logical and global in perspective. Collaborating with colleagues from diverse backgrounds made me wonder: if I could learn on an even bigger stage, would there be more possibilities? During that time, I wasn’t just completing tasks—I was searching for my future direction. So, I decided to apply to graduate schools in the United States, to broaden my horizons and push myself higher.

The first half of the year as a rookie intern

I experienced the last semester of the academic club in college, and decided to give myself an experience different from school life, so I chose the industrial internship in the department and entered the "Taichung System Development Department, Marketing Information Department, Cathay Life Insurance". Perhaps because of a bit of luck, I happened to meet Cathay Pacific who was updating the old system, so I directly joined the company's project development to create a greenhouse gas inventory information disclosure platform, log in and audit the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire company and make reports. Thinking that other Cathay Pacific people will use the system I made, every time I make a part, I will feel more fulfilled, and I will fully experience the feeling of a rookie working, not just an intern who goes to help. Cathay Pacific’s training plan for new recruits is really perfect. In addition to a set of teaching gitbooks for self-learning, there is also a step-by-step basic teaching by mentors, and then independent implementation of simple projects. Finally, the mentor’s code review makes us more clear when writing programs. How to improve its performance and legibility. Although there are many interns, there will be some people who are quick learners waiting for those who are a little slower, but this part will happen more or less, so I used this time to study the bottom part of their project structure and understand the whole The architecture of the system will also be of great help to me in making projects later on. For me, the report is probably what I learned the most here! After the project started, every two weeks, I had to report what I had completed, what functions I had done, why I did it, and how I could optimize it. In addition to training me to be able to present my results without nervousness to a group of unfamiliar people on stage, it also increased my ability to fully describe my ideas for the projects I produced. This part is a very important ability whether you will continue to study in graduate school or enter the workplace in the future.