My study plan to CMU

As the saying goes, "it is never to late to learn." However, it does take more efforts when you get old.

When I first proposed the idea of visiting U.S. for one year, the response from my family is not very positive. My mom and parents in law all thought the kids are too young. My husband thought I was too naive. It seems the idea won't work out because I don't have a good plan for the kids. I even thought carrying an online Ad to solicit people who would like to babysit my babies in U.S. Luckily, my sister, Ada, comes to rescue. She encouraged me to do what I really want and gave me the promise that she could help me with kids if necessary. That is, she might even quit her job for me. That is a great great favor one can give. I can't express enough thanks to her. So, I began this big plan with her support.

During this time, several reports come out in favor of my plan. The "Gap Year" concept from the Oct 2006 issue from 遠見 magaine gives me a good reason for persuading my husband to take a break from his job. This year, the Feb issue of Business Weekly, also praise the idea of "Grand Tour" which places oneself to an unknown environment for cluture experiencing. All these new concepts help me to persuade my husband to take the move, aspecially when our parents are still young and healthy enough for us to leave.

After the grant from the goverment is approved, I am glad now that my husband is with me for this plan and will take a parental leave from his job. We choose Carnegie Mellon University as our destination, which is one of the best school in computer science. I advisedly avoid schools in California since there are many Chinese there. This April we visit Pittsburgh after attending a conference in Rochester, NY. In addition to meet the host professor, we also look arround Pittsburgh for apartment hunting. One of the landlords told us that Pittsburgh is being rated as the best city to live in U.S. There should be a lot to look forward to.

To be continued...