DPS 周刊 123 -- 李飞飞的移民奋斗史

最近李飞飞教授出版了她的自传 The Worlds I See, 这是她的个人成长史,也是一部移民的奋斗史。

李飞飞教授在计算机视觉领域做出过卓越贡献,因为她创建的数据集 ImageNet,使得后来的深度学习在图片识别领域有了测试基准,从而大放异彩。

李飞飞教授出生在北京,成长在成都。后来她父亲于1989年先移居到美国,三年后,她和母亲得以成行,与她父亲在美国团聚。

In the initial phase, which I quickly realized was spearheaded by my mother, my father would find work and secure a place to live. In the second phase, to follow shortly thereafter, we would join him.

因为成都没有飞往美国的航班,所以她和母亲先赶到上海,再搭乘飞往美国的航班。离开上海前,李飞飞特地前往浦江饭店,因为传言这里是爱因斯坦曾经下榻的酒店。就在访问上海前后,爱因斯坦获得了诺贝尔奖。当然在年少的李飞飞看来,还有另一层东西激励着她,那就是爱因斯坦也是移民。

Maybe this won’t be so bad, I thought. Einstein was an immigrant, too, after all.

当她们飞抵美国,等了很久,不见她父亲来接机。她和母亲非常焦灼,因为无法联系上她父亲,也没有钱买回中国的机票,更不用说她当时的英语口语不足以和人交流。

My mother had exactly twenty U.S. dollars in her pocket, we had no return ticket, and I quickly found that the couple of years I’d spent learning basic English in school were all but useless in practice.

终于等到她父亲来接机,之所以耽误了很久,是因为他的二手车在路上抛锚了。这种事在囊肿羞涩的移民中经常发生。

到了美国还没喘一口气,她就赶去学校上课。当然第一天的学校生活就让她爱上了美国。

On an otherwise imposing first day, I instantly knew one thing: I would love American teachers.

之后,李飞飞考上了普林斯顿攻读物理,获得了全奖。第一次让这个经济紧张的家庭如释重负。

Every milestone of her life had been a reminder that she was on the wrong side of divides she had no hope of bridging, conditioning her over decades to feign a confidence I knew she never truly felt.

等到从普林斯顿毕业,刚好赶上第一波互联网泡沫。连华尔街也疯狂找人,想赶上这一风口 。李飞飞接到了不少华尔街投行的职位,于是她回去和母亲谈起这件事。如果去华尔街工作,高薪立即可以让这个移民家庭脱离困境。但是她母亲只问了两个问题就让李飞飞认识到这并不是她真正想要的。

“Fei-Fei, is it what you want?”
“You know what I want, Mom. I want to be a scientist.”
“So what are we even talking about?”

于是她选择了加州理工攻读研究生,其中一个原因是她在先前访问加州理工时,见到了 Pietro PeronaChristof Koch 两位教授。两位不仅照亮了李飞飞的学术梦想,更重要的是,他们的移民背景让她见识到了可能性。

The world as I knew it faded to near silence when I found myself in dialogue with people like Pietro and Christof, as if our ideas alone were doing the talking, unencumbered by our language, status, or age. They were a new kind of role model: immigrants who hadn’t just made it, but had made it as scientists.

二十多年后,功成名就的李飞飞教授被邀请到美国国会听证会作证,而她的母亲当时因为重病在 ICU 躺着。李飞飞教授一边在 ICU 写证词草稿,一边在考虑是否要去国会作证,因为那样可能没有人能照顾她母亲。

Disease, however, is no match for the pride of an immigrant mother; the opportunity to see her daughter address the United States Congress, little more than two decades after arriving in this country, was simply too much to pass up.

尽管早已大获成功,回忆起自己的移民经历,李飞飞教授还是不由感叹:

What made the work draining was the uncertainty that hangs over the immigrant experience.
As an immigrant, it’s easy to feel as if all of one’s problems are due to incursions from the outside world.
Like many immigrants, I felt hemmed in by cultural divides that crisscrossed my life, ranging from the invisible to the unmistakable.

如果你也想考虑移民的话,不妨明晚来听听我们的 AwesomeVisa Workshop -- 润向瑞典


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Recap

最近读到 Mark Manson 的文章 How to Be Successful in Life,深有同感。这篇文章提到的部分道理其实也适用于技术移民上,我们不妨一一来看:

  1. 明确目标并专注
  2. 抓住独特的机会
  3. 面对失败和挑战
  4. 认识移民的负面影响
  5. 探究真正的动机
Exodus 3.19 - 如何成功技术移民?
请让我们用脚投票 最近读到 Mark Manson 的文章 How to Be Successful in Life,深有同感。这篇文章提到的部分道理其实也适用于技术移民上,我们不妨一一来看: 1. 明确目标并专注 2. 抓住独特的机会 3. 面对失败和挑战 4. 认识移民的负面影响 5. 探究真正的动机 如果你想知道成功移民需要哪些特质,不妨翻阅我们之前的文章: Exodus 3.2 - 成功移民的人,有哪些不可或缺的特质?请让我们用脚投票 移民不是一件一蹴而就的事,它往往需要多年的准备和当地经验才能实现,而且从迈出国门到最终转换身份身份,往往还要经历数年的时间。离开熟悉的…

Nick Maggiulli 认为这个世界上没有什么事是容易的:

  1. 即使你是顶尖的球员,可能换一个联赛,你的表现就不那么出众。并不是你的球技退步了,而是你身边的球员更强了;
  2. 人生可能就是这样一个一直追赶的游戏,除非你在这一领域内做到最强,否则一直就在追赶;
  3. 除了提高自己的技能之外,还有一种可能性就是换一个领域尝试,也许这样会变得容易一些;
  4. 当然这种容易可能也维持不了多久,不久之后,这样的领域也会变难。也许这就是人生。
Daily Productive Sharing 846 - Never Gets Easier
One helpful tip per day:) Nick Maggiulli reflects that nothing in this world is easy: 1. Even if you’re a top player, switching to a different league might make your performance seem less impressive. It’s not that your skills have diminished, but that the players around you have gotten

Matt Lakeman 给自己设定了一个24小挑战:

  1. 不能接触任何外部刺激机制,比如使用手机,与他人交谈。
  2. 必须在这24小时内待在卧室里。
  3. 房间里允许有一个满的23.7盎司的水瓶。
  4. 手机将面朝下放置。会设置一个24小时的闹钟。不得以任何方式与手机互动。
  5. 不被允许知道现在是什么时间。必须等待闹钟响起。

他最后挑战成功了,他发现自己的思绪更清晰,而且不会被外部刺激所干扰。

Daily Productive Sharing 847 - Do Nothing for 24 Hour
One helpful tip per day:) Matt Lakeman set a 24-hour challenge for himself: 1. I cannot engage in any stimulating behavior using external mechanisms for 24 hours. 2. I must remain in my bedroom for the duration of the 24 hours. 3. I am permitted to have one full 23.

Morgan Housel 介绍了一种隐形负债 -- 期待负债:

  1. 期待负债是指我们的预期和现实出现巨大的差异,即使现实并不差,但由于我们的预期过高,依旧会形成期待负债;
  2. 期待负债客观存在,但又很难量化。比如改革开放带来了多年的高增长,一旦这种增长放缓,即使 GDP 仍旧还在增长,大家还是会遇期待负债;
  3. 这些负债真实存在,所以明白他们的存在之后,我们需要更合理地管理自己的预期。
Daily Productive Sharing 848 - Expectations Debt
One helpful tip per day:) Morgan Housel introduced a concept called “expectation debt”: 1. Expectation debt refers to a significant gap between our expectations and reality; even if the reality isn’t that bad, the high expectations can still create a feeling of debt. 2. Expectation debt indeed e…

Jack Raines 结合自己的经历介绍道,很多工作是靠自己创造的,而互联网是很好的助推剂:

  1. 努力做某个有趣的项目,并向世界宣传它;
  2. 不断迭代和改进你的“东西”,直到你因它而出名;
  3. 吸引一群同样在打造他们自己“东西”的有趣人士;
  4. 当你看到别人的“东西”可能与你的“东西”互补时,给他们发消息看看他们在做什么;
  5. 获得成功。
Daily Productive Sharing 849 - Create Your Own Career
One helpful tip per day:) With his own experience, Jack Raines introduced the formula for leveraging the internet works something: 1. Work on something interesting, and tell the world about it 2. Keep iterating and improving your “thing” until you are known for it 3. Attract an audience of othe…

“天勾”贾巴尔的电子报最近获得了 National Arts & Entertainment Awards 的提名,于是他公开了三篇被提名的文章,其中一篇介绍他为什么热爱科比:

  1. 科比在 NBA 常规赛中累计获得了 33643 分,略逊于贾巴尔的 38387 分;
  2. 与此同时,科比还保有 NBA 的最多投失次数,职业生涯高达 14481 次;
  3. 所以贾巴尔说,科比最令人敬仰的地方就在于,他不断地从失败中爬起来,一次次重新战斗。
  4. 恐怕他是 NBA 失败次数最多的球员,也是 NBA 中重新爬起来最多的球员。
Daily Productive Sharing 850 - Why We Love Kobe Bryant
One helpful tip per day:) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s newsletter recently received a nomination for the National Arts & Entertainment Awards. He publicly shared three of his nominated articles, one of which explains why he admires Kobe: 1. Kobe accumulated a total of 33,643 points in the NBA regular se…

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