刚刚转发了“别人家的孩子”，一转眼自己家孩子也快要申请大学了。老大最近在申请暑假的一些活动，他给我看了其中一篇申请材料的草稿，他对数学是真爱。曾经我一度非常担心他找不到工作，现在他至少学会了编程，将来养活自己问题不大。他喜欢自己学，不喜欢上辅导班，所以竞赛成绩最多算还行，不是一流选手。但是我觉得以他的兴趣和热情，应该可以吃数学这碗饭。

他计划在11年级选的4门数学课：线性代数、微分方程2、离散数学、信号与系统。哪怕是在他们那个理工科闻名的学校，一学年选4门数学课的也极少，已经学到了他们高中数学课程表的最后一页，上完这几门课，12年级就没数学课可上了。

挺好的，这孩子已经不用我管了。他当然最想去麻省理工，但最终能去哪个大学都无所谓了，从小就知道自己要干什么的人是很幸福的。

（此处我女儿表示，我也从小就知道——只要不学习，我就很幸福。）

下面是他他写的申请文章：

Ever since my childhood, the phrases "personal goals" and "professor of mathematics" have been unseparable to me. Although over the past two years of high school I have gained interest in physics and computer science as well, math remains my favorite subject. By teaching it at a college level, I hope to foster not only numerical skill, but also intrinsic appreciation of math. Much like how Oscar Wilde advocated the philosophy of "art for art's sake," nothing would please me more than seeing students enjoy "math for math's sake." This is partly the reason my favorite branch of math is number theory—it has few applications to other disciplines, and is instead the purest form of the subject. As Gauss once said, "mathematics is the queen of sciences and arithmetic the queen of mathematics." Many of my role models are prominent number theorists, such as Terence Tao and Paul Erdos. The pain that Yitang Zhang, another famous number theorist, experienced while working at a subway station prior to making significant progress on the Twin Prime Conjecture also convinced me of the importance of perseverance, which I will keep in mind in my endeavors in the next five to ten years.