当时自己在写Personal Statement的时候，是直接用英文来写的。这里为了让更多的读者读懂，我把概要翻译成了汉语，并且原文放在下面。
我简直难以相信，我就坐在波士顿交响乐大厅之中。大厅中美轮美奂的音乐让人沉醉其中久久不能自拔。当演奏会最后一个乐符落下帷幕时，我才猛然意识到这是赛宾博士的混响时间公式给了空间以音乐美感的享受。我被这建筑声学的威力所深深吸引，这是我的声学梦想。时间拉回到四年之前的大学一年级，很多声乐系的同学说，她们最喜欢在厕所里唱歌，因为这样可以让她们更好地听到自己的回音。怎么做才能让演唱者更好地听到自己的声音呢？为了搞清楚这个问题，在随后的几年中，我修读了学校中几乎所有的声学课程，例如《声学基础》、《声学测量》、《水声学》。慢慢地，我意识到，问题的关键在于舞台局域混响时间。在四年级的时候，我参加了一次音乐厅设计的论证会，声乐系孙道东教授要求，“站在舞台上拍手，能够听到回声”。但是，建筑工程师认为无法保证这一点。我提出了自己的解决方案，但是大家不予理睬，因为大家认为我太年轻幼稚不足以解决这样的工程难题。但是，傅圣雪教授鼓励我，“不要放弃，因为他们远没有我这样对声学的热爱”。在毕业论文中，我依旧研究这个问题，最终获得了校优秀毕业论文的荣誉。同时，我的想法也受到了美国声学学会的认可，被邀请做学术报告。在学术交流中，我提出的“利用自然声返听音响控制舞台局域混响时间以提高舞台演唱效果”的课题受到了同行专家老师的认可，尤其是受到了一位密歇根大学建筑学院教授的高度赞扬。我知道，这一切来源于对梦想的坚持。一百年前，赛宾教授在哈佛大学任教；一百年后，一位对声学充满热爱的年轻人渴望来到哈佛大学深造。
下面的内容是我当时的Personal Statement的原文：
I could hardly believe that I was sitting in the Boston Symphony Hall one year ago. The statues on the wall were gleaming under the soft light; and the music was flowing around so comfortably to people’s ears. Yes, Boston Symphony Hall is the best classical music hall in the world. All the audience were lost themselves in the melody, but I couldn’t focus on the music. My ears were keenly catching each sound, and my mind is running to figure out how the sound to be produced. Different from most audience, I’m a special audience, I came to pay my respect to Dr. Wallace Clement Sabine, who participated in the design of the hall according to his Sabine Reverberation Equation. It’s Dr. Sabine who gave the acoustic life to the hall.
As a young student on acoustical research from far-away China, this was my first time for me to put my feet on the land of the U.S. But I had made up my mind to come to the hall and experience it in person. I was thrilled about the sight and the sound. Surrounded by the beautiful music, I could feel my tears welled up in my eyes, feeling that I’m like a pilgrim of acoustics. But I don’t care because I knew at that moment nobody would notice it. I was excited about how a great scientist and his scientific works could contribute to people. Dr. Sabine proposed the famous reverberation equation in the early twentieth century, and he changed the situation that people didn’t know how to guarantee speech intelligibility.
When the last note of the concert ended at that evening, an idea had become more and more clear to me that I’ll strive for a chance to receive further training in acoustics at Hartford University，where Dr. Sabine once had pursued his research in acoustics.
This is my acoustical dream. And I have had an acoustical dream all the time since I entered university. Acoustics is an old and young subject. That is, where there is sound, there is acoustics, which may date back to millions of years ago. Meanwhile, it is the last one hundred years that acoustic application has become popular, for example, the microphone used by singers, ultrasound imaging devices for doctors, sonar used in sailors, etc. Obviously, acoustics is closely connected to every aspect of human life. My research interest is in the practical application of acoustics and improvement to people’s lives.
Intriguingly, my acoustics dream actually was intrigued by students from the vocal music department when I first stepped into university. They told me that the best place for their singing was not in a glamorous big concert hall but in the washroom, which surprised me a lot, because they could hear their voices more easily during singing in a washroom. But why did they listen to their voices more easily there? I’m not a guy who is easily satisfied with a result. I have to admit that I have curiosity gene in me. My friends and professors from the music department couldn’t explain it.
Accompanied and tortured by the puzzle, I have studied hard in all the acoustical courses, such as principles of acoustics, acoustic measurement, underwater acoustics, etc. I also joined in Ocean Acoustic Laboratory and Sound & Vibration Measurement Laboratory to do some acoustical research works. Finally, when I was a junior, I figured out the above-mentioned puzzle. The key is the stage of regional reverberation time. In other words, if the regional reverberation time in a room is longer, singers are more likely to hear their voice; if it’s shorter, singers are less likely to hear their voice, for which they don’t hope. In a washroom, space was tiny and the wall is very smooth, where the regional reverberation time is very long, so it is easier for a vocal singer to hear his/her voice. Nonetheless, it is tough to make an ideal regional reverberation time in a vast space, like a big concert hall or a theatre.
Later, as I was a senior, our university decided to build up a music hall for the vocal music department, but the building is still in planning now. The delay is because the architect can hardly satisfy the acoustic requirements in vocal music. Professor Daodong Sun, the dean of the vocal music department, said, “we want to hear the echo when we’re clapping our hands on the stage.” However, the architect responded, “we have no idea about how to realize the echo function.” In my eyes, I understand thoroughly professor Daodong Sun. What he called “echo” is the “regional reverberation” from a professional point of view.
As an undergraduate, I proposed some ways to solving the regional reverberation problem in a music hall. To be specific, we could apply the techniques of the acoustic metamaterial to address this problem in the field of architectural acoustics. Yet when I put forward my solutions to the vocal music department, the architect, and administrators, nobody would like to listen to me. Maybe they think I’m too young to handle such a problem, and even they didn’t allow me a chance to express my ideas. At that time, I felt very disappointed.
Fortunately, one day, when I met my advisor, professor Shengxue Fu, and told him what happened. He warmly encouraged me, “young man, you’ll make it someday!” And professor Fu explained, “The reason why you’re rejected is that you are not capable of solving the problem as you think, and they don’t have such enthusiasm about acoustics as you have.”
Thanks to these encouragements, I have never given up my acoustical dream.
In the last semester of university, routinely, each student needs to select a topic and write a thesis on it within five months. My thesis is a demonstration that acoustic metamaterials can be used for the solution of regional reverberation in a big hall. I’ll never forget the day when I gave the defense debate in June 2019, and I presented my eighty-page manuscript involving theoretical calculation and deduction about the demonstration. It got highly recognized among all the judge professors on site. And I was awarded the most outstanding undergraduate thesis prize in our university.
Based on my thesis, I submitted a paper to the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Consequently, it was accepted by ASA, and I’m invited to give a presentation in an architectural session at the ASA Meeting to be held in Dec. 2019, in San Diego. Although both the prize and invitation indicated that other researchers had recognized my research works, there are still some imperfections and shortcomings in my work. For example, I didn’t illustrate the three-dimensional acoustical model clearly. So, I wholeheartedly wish a chance to join the acoustical research program at your university to be exposed to the top research team in acoustics.
Admittedly, Harvard University, as a top and prestigious university in the world, is a dream place for all the ambitious young men, including me. More Importantly, Harvard’s scientific research is always a pioneer across the globe. Bertoldi Group in Engineering School has been working on the forefront of acoustical metamaterial and nonlinear acoustics research. Yue Lu Group in Engineering School is working on an efficient acoustic processing algorithm. Being able to join such groups is bound to help me pursue my acoustical dream in the future. If I had the chance to enter your research programs in acoustics, I would spare no effort to devote myself to research work and contribute to the community with my strength. I sincerely wish you would give a favorable consideration for my application for the applied physics doctoral program at Harvard University. I have a dream in acoustics, and I wish my dream would come true at Harford University, where Dr. Sabine created one of the best acoustics in the world.