First Training Session

After downloading the material, Professor Liu dismissed them. He expressed that if they were not busy revising, they should look over the material tonight.

Tomorrow they were going to meet in the school's computer room and to start their first training session.

After Professor Liu dismissed them, Lu Zhou carried his laptop and walked to the library. He continued to write his theses.

He did not even look at the material on his USB.

After all, for him, the system mission was a higher priority than school work.

Other than writing theses, Lu Zhou would occasionally help Chen Yushan with a few math questions.

Honestly speaking, the girl's foundation in mathematics was absolutely horrible. He had no idea how she apparently scored 85 in her first-year mathematical analysis exam.

"You guys don't study mathematics in business school?" asked Lu Zhou. He was completely defeated by a question regarding finding the limits of a function. He rolled his eyes and wrote the answer on the draft paper. Without any mercy, he said, "The teacher just explained this question as an example in class."

Chen Yushan blushed. She refused to accept defeat and defended herself, "I'm studying economics management in the business school. It's not like I study accounting. I've got a lot of other stuff to memorize. When would I have time to study mathematics?"

"I know that you also need to study accounting and statistics for economics…"

"Shut up, I'll buy you lunch."

Lu Zhou shut up immediately. He said in his heart, "Don't be polite, ask me anything you want."

It'd be best if you can buy me dinner as well…

When someone bought him food, Lu Zhou would feel as if he owed them. Even though his financial situation was pretty bad, he would still find a chance to buy them food back.

However, if Chen Yushan wanted to buy him food…

He did not feel ashamed at all.

He used his skill to earn the meal. Why would he have to treat her back?

He helped her with all of the topics in advanced algebra and he did not even charge her. It was normal for her to buy him food.

After the library closed, Lu Zhou went back to his dorm and continued to work a little bit more. He finally finished writing his first thesis.

The value score of the first thesis was the highest out of the ten. The system assessed it at 30 general points. He thought about some of the conclusions of this paper as it was a supplement to the arguments in his previous thesis. Lu Zhou was prepared to submit it again to the " International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Mathematics" journal.

As for the rest of the nine theses, his submission goal was "Modern Communication and Geographic Information Technology"

As a non-core journal, this domestic journal was rare and it did not require any review and layout fees. It also did not care if the author had financial support. It would even pay the authors 150 yuan per thesis. Comparing this with the other journals that only cared about the pockets of researchers, this was the "clear stream" of the academic mudslide!

Nine theses were 1350 yuan!

By the time he finally finished uploading his mathematics thesis, it was already two o'clock in the morning.

Lu Zhou saw the time was late. He turned off his laptop, yawned, and laid in bed. As he listened to his roommates' snoring sound, he slowly drifted into his dreams.

…

Professor Liu and Lu Zhou were lazy and did not wake up early. He walked into the computer room behind Professor Liu. When he walked in, he discovered that he was not the latest to arrive. When he walked in with Professor Liu, only Wang Xiaodong was inside the classroom.

"Morning."

As always, Lu Zhou smiled and said hello. He thought that the proud genius would ignore him. As a result, he did not expect to hear him reply.

"Morning."

Although it was only one word, it was quite a big breakthrough for him.

Lu Zhou was gratified.

Honestly speaking, he was not worried at all about his team's abilities. The only thing he was worried about was his relationships with his teammates. He knew that he was not the only one worried about this. Professor Liu must also be concerned.

If Lin Yuxiang could be used as a mediator, it would not be that bad to have her on the team.

Probably.

Just as he was going off track thinking about this, Lin Yuxiang finally arrived. This time was better as she was only late by 15 minutes.

As always, Professor Liu Xiangping did not say anything to her. He just smiled faintly. He signaled her to find a place to sit down and then started the course for the day.

According to the training plan, today was the first training session, which was to develop cooperation between the teammates.

They did not want to waste too much time so the questions were not difficult. They could all be solved on the spot.

Professor Liu gave a string of fictitious data of telecom users and made up more than 20 tasks to do. The requirement was to classify consumer habits through mathematical modeling and design products for different user groups.

As the data was made up, the data source was not given in the question. He only gave them an excel spreadsheet.

The knowledge needed for calculations was biased toward statistics. It involved economics and product management techniques. Compared to yesterday's appetizer, the difficulty of this question had undoubtedly improved.

The simple mathematical formulas were not necessarily useless in this practical application. Rather, the difficulty of this question was not in the mathematics part. It was how to convert this type of problem into a mathematical problem.

The good thing was that the question itself was not that complicated. It just required a broad range of knowledge. Lu Zhou thought about it for nearly half an hour. He first used statistical techniques to classify customers. Then he used a matrix algorithm to solve two of the questions.

Lu Zhou brought a couple of draft paper to Wang Xiaodong and put them on his computer desk. He said, "The model is done and I've sent it to your email. The other part I calculated it with a pen so it's written on the paper. You should be fine with organizing the formula and entering it into the computer right?"

Wang Xiaodong nodded and his answer was concise, "No problem."

As expected, the efficiency of the two geniuses was extraordinary.

Lu Zhou quickly finished building the mathematical model. Wang Xiaodong also quickly used the computer in the computer room to code the program. It took them less than two hours. It was estimated that it would take a day but they had already finished it in such a short amount of time.

After examining the results of Lu Zhou and Wang Xiaodong respectively, Professor Liu could not help but be impressed. He had coached a total of five mathematical modeling competitions. These two were the most talented students he had ever met.

Lu Zhou smiled and accepted the teacher's compliment. As for Wang Xiaodong, there was no expression on his face as usual. However, from the corner of his mouth, a sliver of satisfaction could be seen.

The first training session went smoothly.

However, the biggest problem was Lin Yuxiang…

Although this girl had written a lot of student council's reports, she had never written a thesis before. She spent half an hour researching the format requirements and made no progress.

Wang Xiaodong was embarrassed. After all, it was him that strongly recommended Lin Yuxiang and believed that she could take on the role. The competition had not even started and she already dropped the ball in the first training session.

Although Lu Zhou had a slight smile on his face, his heart was full of resentment.

You said you're in student work, then properly do student work. You should stay in your own lane. My future is bright, why would you come and drag me down.

Next time, at least search online on how to write a thesis beforehand. All you know how to do is let people pity you! How useless!

I'm so pissed off!

Teacher Liu was not angry at all. He just smiled and comforted Lin Yuxiang who kept apologizing. He then allowed Wang Xiaodong to guide her through thesis writing and called Lu Zhou to the hallway.

He took out a cigarette, looked at the two students inside the classroom, and said to Lu Zhou, "What do you think? Have you thought about my suggestion from yesterday?"