Tang Xiaolin, an American student, has been gone for six months.
In October 2017, information about missing Chinese female students attracted attention in the United States: Tang Xiaolin, a 2004-degree space physics major at Peking University and a mentor assistant researcher at the University of Utah, lost contact in San Francisco.
Tang Xiaolin's last trace before she disappeared was October 1, when she headed to the welcoming center on the south side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was where she had said in a message to her friend that she was going to end her life.
Later, her body was found by police in the cold bay.
On the 10th, Chinese students from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah received an email from Professor Bromley, the dean of the department, saying that Tang Xiaolin, a graduate student from China, had died.
On the same day, a University of Utah press spokesman also confirmed that Tang Xiaolin was confirmed dead by police.
After the announcement of Tang Xiaolin's death, the cause of her death became the focus of attention.
Some students at the University of Utah believe that Tang Xiaolin's death may be related to the excessive pressure exerted on her by her mentor, Saveez Saffarian.
From her known experience, Tang Xiaolin has spent a long time studying in space physics at Peking University in 2004, and went to the University of Utah to study as a graduate student after her undergraduate degree in 2008. He went on to take a doctorate in biophysics at the University of Utah and did it in the direction of the rather difficult virus RNA (the project). "
This is the seventh year of her doctorate. According to Tang Xiaolin, in these seven years, she published a total of 6 articles, but still did not graduate.
An anonymous netizen who claimed to be a teacher and sister of Tang Xiaolin, who was also studying in the United States, said that Tang Xiaolin "sometimes has to go to the laboratory in the middle of the night to observe the experiment, which is very hard." I remember having dinner with her once, and it was 10:00 in the evening after eating with her. " She's going back to the lab to see the results. " At the same time, the netizen also said that Tang Xiaolin in the process of reading a new mentor, "the mentor is said to be not very good to her and another Chinese girl."
Even more puzzling, after Tang Xiaolin's death, her mentor first deleted information from her research team about Tang Xiaolin and another Chinese girl.
"according to common sense, the teacher should be on the home page to express condolences, the appearance of this anomaly, and then contact Dr. Tang Xiaolin 7 years, sent six articles, have not graduated, we can not help but doubt the mentor's heart and cold blood."
In order to find out whether the mentor's practices directly or indirectly led to Tang Xiaolin's death, many of the Chinese students at the same school said they should ask the school to open the emails of the mentor and Tang Xiaolin's final phase. And find out why this mentor delayed Tang Xiaolin graduation reasons.
The school said it would investigate Tang Xiaolin's mentor to find out if the mentor had treated students unfairly.
In order to understand the cause of Tang Xiaolin's suicide, the University of Utah hired Florida's Foley and Lardner law firm, a former, current student, professor and school administrator, from October last year. Tang Xiaolin's friends and family members and more than 40 people interviewed, and access to Tang Xiaolin-related documents.
Finally, a recent study of up to 6 pages of paper was presented.
The findings reveal serious problems in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah:
Students are overworked and their degrees are delayed; the atmosphere in the lab is tense and squabbles occur from time to time; students are divided over resources; and factional teachers are grumpy and unheard of each other. In recent years, many cases in which Chinese students have died or become victims of crime seem to be related to these factors. The report confirmed that Tang Xiaolin's study course was postponed, graduation seems to be far away.
In particular, Tang Xiaolin did not take part in the doctoral qualification examination (Qualifying) until her seventh year of graduate school.
Exam), this is not in line with policy. Investigators found that students often exceeded their expected workload, a harsh doctoral program. Students often need to study in intense laboratory environments late at night and on weekends. The survey also found that the number of international school students participating in teacher-student groups and graduate advisory committees was low, and that they were fed up with negative experiences. The right of a student mentor with the ability to monitor student progress, direction of research, letters of recommendation, and visa-related documents is infinitely magnified in front of international students and may sometimes be abused.
Tang Xiaolin's tragedy has occurred one after another in many graduate students, doctoral students, especially scientific researchers at home and abroad.
Unlike what the outside world imagines as brilliant and bright prospects, they often have to deal with projects that are not allowed to graduate, have failed experiments repeatedly, and spend a lot of time researching projects that "will never come out with results." Even after graduation, there may be an awkward situation in which you can't find a suitable job at all.
After the tragedy, compared with the "poor psychological quality" of the deceased, "reading and reading silly" rebuke, we need to ask what really pushed them into the abyss?