Chapter 14: Thesis Submission

The next morning.

At his workstation in the lab, Zhou Yun rubbed his slightly sore chest and then opened his computer to start revising his paper.

The suggestions Deng Yonghua gave him yesterday were very clear, so he made the changes quickly.

By the end of the morning, he had finished and sent the revised version back to Deng Yonghua.

Not long after, he received a reply.

“Looks good. Prepare to submit it. Just pay attention to the formatting requirements.”

Zhou Yun found the official NeurIPS 2024 website, registered according to their instructions, and meticulously checked the submission format guidelines.

He made a few more tweaks to the paper.

After confirming everything was in order, he controlled the mouse, took a deep breath, and clicked submit.

“Submitted.” The paper had been officially submitted.

Now, all he could do was wait.

Fortunately, the review process for top conferences like this is usually quite fast; authors typically receive notifications within a few months, which would be just as the new semester started.

This year’s NeurIPS conference was scheduled to take place from December 9th to 15th in Vancouver.

If his paper really got accepted, he would definitely attend the conference.

Glancing once more at the submission page, Zhou Yun shook his head, deciding not to dwell on it.

He had done all he could, and having read several NeurIPS papers, honestly, his work wasn’t lacking. Just as Professor Deng said, he needed to have confidence in his research.

As he was packing up to leave, Deng Yonghua called out to him.

In the corridor.

“Did you submit the paper?” Deng asked with a smile.

“Yes, just now.”

“Since it’s submitted, don’t overthink it. Results usually come quickly for these top conferences. What’s your plan now?”

“First, I want to recharge. During this research process, I realized I still have many shortcomings and want to strengthen my fundamentals.”

“Good thinking. I took a closer look at your paper and even consulted some other professors. If your technology can really be implemented, it might have commercial value. How much, I can’t say for sure, but I suggest you write a patent. Our group can also provide some funding.”

“A patent? Okay, I’ll write one later.” Patents weren’t difficult to write anyway, and getting some funding was a bonus.

“How are you adjusting to life here?”

“Good, I’ve gotten used to it. The senior students in the group are all very kind.”

“That bunch of brats—I still don’t know what they’re thinking,” Deng chuckled. “If you have any difficulties, just tell me. Are you heading back now?”

“Yes, I’m planning to work out and then go home.”

“Working out, huh? A good balance between work and rest. By the way, do you need a gym membership? Keep the receipt; the group’s budget can reimburse you.”

“Ah? Okay.” Zhou Yun hadn’t expected that—Senior Brother Qiu was right, they really would reimburse him!

Also, he was planning to leave before six in the evening, and the professor noticed but didn’t say anything, which felt a bit unusual.

In his previous life, if the advisor found a student not in the lab at nine at night, they would call one by one to check if everything was alright and tell them not to go home too early.

After finishing his workout, Zhou Yun suddenly remembered the stipend payments and checked them.

“Huh?”

The bank statement showed:

+3000

“Is our group really this well-funded?”

In his previous life, Zhou Yun only received six hundred yuan per month in stipends from the group!

He even wondered if he had attended a fake graduate school back then.

But now, that amount was enough to buy a car.

The next morning, Zhou Yun received a message from the logistics department saying his computer was ready, along with two monitors, and he needed to pick them up in Building B.

“Senior Brother Qiu, can you help me move the computer? There’s no way I can carry all this alone.”

Qiu Yan took off his headphones. “Your computer arrived?”

“Yes, the logistics staff just messaged me. It’s in Building B.”

“Let’s go. I’ll bike you over.” He was curious to see what kind of computer the professor had provided Zhou Yun.

The two arrived at the logistics office.

“We’re here to pick up the computer,” they said.

The logistics staff nodded. “You’re Professor Deng’s student, right? Here’s your computer. Do you want us to install the graphics card, or will you do it yourself?”

He pointed to a box among three others—the box containing the graphics card.

“We’ll install it ourselves. No trouble for you.”

There was quite a lot to carry, so the two of them made two trips before bringing everything back to the lab.

“Qiu Yan, what’s all this?” Some senior students who had just arrived didn’t know what was going on. Shen Rui guessed, but said nothing.

“New equipment the professor ordered for us?” Yu Tianrui put down his bag and went over to the boxes, then spotted the graphics card box.

“What? A graphics card too? What model? Let me have a look.”

He was shocked once he saw it.

“Holy crap! Since when did the professor get so generous? He even got a 4080?”

Qiu Yan snatched the box away. “Don’t break it. Stop dreaming—this is all for Junior Brother Zhou Yun. The professor got him a new computer.”

“All of this?” He gestured at the boxes on the floor.

“Yeah,” Qiu Yan nodded calmly.

“Wait, why does he get this?”

“Junior Brother just got a paper into NeurIPS. We don’t know if it will be accepted, but even if not, it’s probably at least an A-level paper. Why not give him a proper computer?”

Qiu Yan was beginning to understand Professor Deng better.

“NeurIPS?! When did this happen? Why didn’t I know?”

Now not only Yu Tianrui but also the usually quiet Wang Jiayue looked over.

Qiu Yan rolled his eyes. “You weren’t paying attention during group meeting. Didn’t Professor Deng mention it last time?”

“Professor Deng said our group published a paper, and I thought it was you. Turns out it’s Junior Brother Zhou Yun?”

A few senior students helped set up Zhou Yun’s computer.

“Junior Brother Zhou Yun, next time you have an experiment to run, just ask us to help. Maybe I can get a second or third author spot.”

Zhou Yun smiled and agreed. Besides the first author spot, the others didn’t mean much to him. Having help to run experiments and reduce his workload made him more than happy.

The next month went by quite smoothly for Zhou Yun.

After submitting the code, the paper was completely out of his hands.

He hadn’t open-sourced the code yet, since the paper wasn’t published, but he planned to do so as soon as it was.

In the meantime, as the professor suggested, he found some time to write a patent application and had just submitted it. It would likely undergo review for a while.

The rest of the time, Zhou Yun spent almost entirely studying mathematics, going through all the subjects he'd listed earlier.

The deeper he delved, the more he appreciated the elegance of mathematical formulas.

No wonder math scholars call it the most beautiful language in the world.

He was beginning to understand that sentiment.

After a month, the status of his paper changed from "Awaiting Administrator Checklist" to "With Editor."

This meant that reviewers had already started evaluating his paper.