First of all, I’d like to draw attention to the importance of reviewing what we have learned. Although you might hate all the exams in high school, there is no doubt that they can help us to learn effectively. So I want everyone to spend 15-20 minutes in reviewing the PPT slides I upload each week, and I will see if you do it by asking some questions in our class.

When asked the question why we write, you may immediately say we write for all kinds of exams. But besides that, why we write? I suppose writing can help us to improve two essential abilities that we might ignore in college, namely the abilities to think and communicate.

I also talked about how to read and write, and how to combine reading and writing. For beginners, writing summaries is a great way to read deeply and have something to write about. The ability to summarize and synthesize is fundamental for academic writing, which you will need to learn when you write your thesis for graduation.

You can begin by writing summaries of the articles you have learned and been interested in, and try to analyze and appreciate an article from a writer’s perspective. If this goes well, you could collect and summarize interesting articles you encounter on the Internet or books.

I strongly encourage you to read Paul Graham’s essays, which cover a variety of themes, such as technology, Silicon Valley, startups, business administration, and thoughts about everyday lives. Personally, I have learned and benefited such much from his essays, so I hope you will, too.

If you don’t like his style, that’s totally fine. I hope you can find something that will interest you in this list: http://www.lxweimin.com/p/c82463c0362d

So you can begin your reading now.