On the morning of October 12, 2025, the inaugural joint class meeting for Shenzhen University's 2025 cohort of the Ministry of Education's “Talent Reserve Program” doctoral class and the Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Class was successfully held in Lecture Hall 1 of Huixing Building at Shenzhen University. Attendees included Academician Xie Heping, Chief Scientist of the Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Class; Zhu Lingyan, Deputy Director of the Academic Affairs Office and Director of the Admissions Office at Shenzhen University; Vice Deans Zou Liang, Yang Lei, and Guo Jun from our School; relevant faculty members from the Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Class working group; and over 100 faculty and students from our School's Class of 2024 and and undergraduate students from the Class of 2024 and 2025 of the Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Class, totaling over 100 faculty and students.

The class meeting was chaired by Vice Dean Guo Jun. Zhu Lingyan, Director of Shenzhen University's Admissions Office, along with Vice Dean Zou Liang (responsible for graduate education) and Vice Dean Yang Lei (responsible for undergraduate education), each offered high praise for the development of the Mathematics and Physics Class and the Talent Reserve Class. They expressed their commitment to providing strong support for the advancement of these programs. Vice Dean Guo Jun provided a detailed introduction to the training program for the Mathematics and Physics Class, urging students to cherish the invaluable resources and premier platform provided by Academician Xie, and to maintain a spirit of gratitude.

Subsequently, Academician Xie Heping held a unique welcome ceremony for the students—a book presentation with personal messages. Academician Xie presented each doctoral and undergraduate student with a special and precious gift: his university lecture notes titled “Academician Xie Heping's University Lecture Notes.” This gift comprised photocopied versions of his university lecture notes from courses in Mechanics of Materials, Plasticity Theory, Fracture Mechanics, and Finite Element Methods. Within these pages lie numerous stress analysis diagrams and formula derivation steps drawn by Academician Xie himself, alongside his personal interpretations of theorems and formulas. This gift encapsulates a set of learning methodologies that have profoundly benefited Academician Xie throughout his life.

Next, Academician Xie Heping delivered an insightful and heartfelt inaugural lecture to all students attending the joint class meeting. He began by extending congratulations and a warm welcome to the Class of 2025 doctoral students selected for the Ministry of Education's “Talent Reserve Program” and the undergraduate students of the Class of 2025 in the Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Program. Academician Xie briefly outlined the background, talent cultivation model, and long-term vision for the Talent Reserve Program and Mathematics and Mechanics Innovation Class: The doctoral program focuses on addressing major national scientific and technological challenges, cultivating urgently needed talent for developing new productive forces. innovatively establishing a cultivation model for elite innovative talents based on direct undergraduate-to-master's-to-doctoral programs, integrated master's-to-doctoral pathways, and application-based doctoral admissions. It adopts a cross-disciplinary, cross-school, and cross-faculty collaborative training model featuring dual or multi-mentor guidance. Centered on two major research domains—deep earth, deep sea, and deep space, alongside green energy—it assembles an international, high-caliber interdisciplinary mentor team to foster world-class talent. The undergraduate program focuses on scientific and engineering frontiers, implementing an integrated “interdisciplinary foundation in mathematics and physics + multidisciplinary expertise” training model. It cultivates innovative talents equipped with scientific thinking, independent creativity, international perspectives, and engineering capabilities. Team mentors guide research directions based on student interests, while doctoral candidates and undergraduates engage in one-on-one mentorship for mutual growth. This initiative strives to become a model for cultivating top-tier innovative talents who will underpin China's high-level scientific and technological self-reliance and strength.

At the same time, Academician Xie shared three reflections and aspirations with everyone: “Use your mind to think, your hands to record, and your heart to comprehend.”

First, let's discuss “thinking with your brain.” The core here is to actively engage with problems, cultivate critical thinking, and challenge conventions—rather than passively absorbing information. When you review your notes, you'll notice they contain more than just formulas and theorems. They feature your own stress analysis diagrams, formula derivation steps, and personal interpretations of theorems and equations. This is the essence of “thinking with your brain”: keeping your mind perpetually in a state of inquiry and deduction. For instance, when encountering a conclusion, don't accept it at face value. Trace its underlying assumptions, examine how its logical chain is constructed, and determine its scope of applicability. This is akin to using a powerful software tool like finite element analysis software. The most efficient approach is never to memorize operational steps mechanically, but to grasp the underlying algorithmic principles and their applicable domains. “Thinking with your brain” installs this “thinking engine” into your learning, elevating you from merely “memorizing knowledge” to “understanding and mastering knowledge.” Nobel laureate Professor Samuel C. C. Ting has met with me on multiple occasions, hoping I would recommend outstanding students to MIT. He specifically emphasized to me: “The most exceptional students aren't those with the highest scores, but those who can ask questions and possess multidisciplinary knowledge.”

Second, “taking notes by hand.” In this era of information overload, some students might wonder: with recording, photography, and AI summarization so readily available, why bother writing things down? In reality, during the learning process, if an inspiration or idea isn't captured immediately, even the sharpest memory will grow hazy or fade entirely. I keep a notebook by my bedside. Whenever thoughts strike—whether at night or dawn—I jot them down right away. Later that day, I flesh them out into concrete research proposals. I believe handwritten note-taking isn't merely about solidifying fleeting, vague thoughts. During knowledge acquisition and digestion, the act of writing is the most effective method for strengthening memory and deepening understanding. This process simultaneously engages the brain in active information analysis and encoding. When you summarize in your own words, sketch mind maps, or create diagrams, your brain shifts from passive reading mode to active comprehension mode. This deep learning through “hand-brain-heart” coordination is something no skimming or AI summarization can replicate. The reason we revise our writing repeatedly is that only when thoughts are committed to paper do logical leaps and flaws in reasoning become fully exposed. Only then can we refine them into high-quality papers. “Taking notes by hand” is about building your own personal knowledge repository—one that can be continuously refined and optimized. This is the solid foundation of your future competitiveness.

Finally, and most crucially, comes “grasping concepts through deep reflection,” whose core lies in the internal process of “digestion and contemplation.” While ‘grasping’ may sound somewhat abstract, it is actually a practiceable method: consciously establishing “connections” between new and old knowledge points, and between learning and life. You'll notice my notes feature annotations in multiple colors. These notes weren't completed in a single classroom session. New annotations represent the process of digesting and understanding old knowledge, as well as embedding new knowledge into an existing framework. This digestion and reflection are crucial for generating innovative ideas. As the ancients said, “The real work lies beyond the poem.” Innovation often arises from collisions between different fields, and these collisions are fundamentally inspired by the understanding, digestion, and reflection of knowledge across various domains. When encountering new knowledge, we must not only record it with our hands and analyze it with our minds, but also grasp it with our hearts—reflecting on its underlying logic, savoring the thinking methods it embodies, and connecting it to deeper associations within broader knowledge systems. This process of understanding, moving “from the surface to the core, from knowledge to insight,” will equip you with the ability to draw analogies and simplify complexities when facing challenges in learning, life, and research.

Academician Xie Heping, your homeroom teacher, shares these words with you: "This classroom notebook is a genuine record of my practice of the ‘think, record, reflect’ method. I present it to you today in the hope that this ‘raw code’ may inspire you. I look forward to you mastering and surpassing these methods, writing your own, even more brilliant chapters in your future lives and academic journeys. At the same time, I urge all students to cherish this rare opportunity and top-tier resource platform, to study diligently, work hard, live up to your youth, and contribute to the nation's development."

Attachment Link: Excerpts from Academician Xie Heping's University Lecture Notes

Contributed by: Lu Jun

Photography: Lu Jun

First Review: Lu Jun

Second Review: Guo Jun

Third Review: Yang Lei