Choosing the right university for you is a big decision with many factors to consider. The institution that you choose will not only be the one that ensures your academic goals, but it will also be where you will live, learn, play sports, socialize and work for several years. Therefore, before you start filling out those university application forms, take a step back and consider the many variables that affect the “fit” of a university to your unique personality and educational goals. Take a look at the following factors, and decide which ones mean the most to you.

    Consider your educational goals. You will discover that different schools are  more recognized or progressive in your chosen field of study than others. For this reason, talk to advisors, professionals in your field, or go to clubs organized by the alumni(校友). When you check out school ranking for your major, you may find that your first choice is not really a match, while another fits perfectly.

    Consider costs. It will be no surprise to you at this point that not all schools cost the same. Some of the more famous schools are so because they are difficult to get into and difficult to pay for. Don't let this necessarily stop you. Just keep this consideration in mind as you narrow your list of potential schools.

    Choosing a university should not be done only on reputation, but also take the academic programs and overall environment into consideration. Be aware that reputations are sometimes out of date or overstated, so first-hand experience is often beneficial.

    Once you've identified the factors that are most important to you, you've taken the first steps towards making a successful choice. Make sure you pick a university that will serve your needs throughout your university career.

    “Community” is not a concept that is easy to define (定义) . In this essay I will examine what turns individuals into a community, and discuss some different types. I will also look at what all communities have in common, the benefits they offer and draw conclusions about their increasing importance.

    The word “community” may make you think of traditional communities in the developing world, where large families live together. We may also imagine the neighbours as people who are happy to help out whenever it is needed. The stereotpical(老套的) view is that of a village, where people have little but can feel very rich because everyone takes responsibility for the welfare of the others.

    On the other hand, there are other types of communities: ultramodern(超现代的) ones, where the community members are unlikely to have actually met each other. These are online communities, where people blog or chat about particular issues that are important to them. They come across others on websites and may develop a relationship there with like-minded people, discussing the same topics. The view is often that these are artificial connections between people who are, in effect, still isolated(孤立的) strangers.

    In reality, the connections are real. Moreover, there are many types of communities in between these extremes: people who join clubs, who sign up with voluntary, political or other organizations, or who take part in group discussions in their local area. They may be campaigning about issues or simply getting together for companionship and support.

    Human beings are social by nature, so it should not be a surprise that we organize ourselves in groups. However, there is more going on: these groups provide something that we cannot achieve on our own. The main benefit of being part of a larger group is strength in numbers. For example, we can access and share more information, we can take part in team sports, we can complain and campaign more effectively and even if we are just having a chat, online or in person, we can feel supported in whatever we do.

    Whatever forms communities take, what defines them is the sense of identity and safety that they provide for their members: the knowledge that there are people who we have something in common with and who can be relied on when we need each other.

Empathy

    Last year, researchers from the University of Michigan reported that empathy, the ability to understand other people, among college students had dropped a lot over the past 10 years. That could be because so many people have replaced face time with screen time, the researchers said. Today, people spend more time alone and seldom join groups and clubs.

    Jennifer Freed, a director of a teen program, has another explanation. on the TV, and you're showered with news and reality shows full of people fighting, competing, and generally treating one another with no respect(尊重).  Humans learn by example—and most of the examples on it are anything but empathetic.

    There are good reasons not to follow those bad examples. Humans are socially connected with nature. Having relationships with other people is an important part of being human—and having empathy is important to those relationships. Researchers have also found that empathetic teenagers always have high self-respect. Besides, empathy can be helpful for loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and fear.

    Empathy is also necessary for a good leader. In fact, Freed says, many top companies report that empathy is one the most important things they look for in new managers. Social skills—including empathy—are a kind of “emotional(情感的) intelligence" that will help you succeed in many areas of life. “Tests results are important. But if you don't have emotional intelligence, you won't be as successful in work or in your love life,” she says.

    What's the best way to up your EQ(情商)? For starters, let down your guard and really listen to others. “One doesn't develop empathy by having a lot of opinions and doing a lot of talking,” Freed says. To really develop empathy, you'd better volunteer at a nursing home or a hospital, join a club or a team that has a diverse membership, have a “sharing circle” with your family, or spend time caring for pets at an animal shelter.

    It's 2035. You have a job, a family and you're about 40 years old! Welcome to your future life.

    Getting ready for work, you pause in front of the mirror.

    “Turn red,” you say. Your shirt changes from sky blue to deep red. Tiny preprogrammed electronics(智能电子元件) are re-arranged in your shirt to change its color. Looking into the mirror, you find it hard to believe you're 40. You look much younger.

    With amazing advances in medicine, people in your generation may live to be 150 years old. You're not even middle-aged! As you go into the kitchen and prepare to pour your breakfast cereal into a bowl, you hear, “To lose weight, you shouldn't eat that.” from your shoes. They read the tiny electronic code on the cereal box to find out the nutrition details. You decide to listen to your shoes. “Kitchen, what can I have for breakfast?” A list of possible foods appears on the counter as the kitchen checks its food supplies.

    “Ready for your trip to space?” you ask your son and daughter. In 2005 only specially trained astronauts went into space and very few of them. Today anyone can go to space for day trips or longer vacations. Your best friend even works in space. Handing your children three strawberries each, you add, “The doctor said you need these for space travel.” Thanks to medical advances, vaccination shots(防疫针) are a thing of the past. Ordinary foods contain specific vaccines. With the strawberries in their mouths, the kids head for the front door.

    It's time for you to go to work. Your car checks your fingerprints and unlocks the doors. “My office, Autopilot,” you command. Your car drives itself down the road and moves smoothly into traffic on the highway. You sit back and unroll your e-newspaper. The latest news downloads and fills the viewer. Looking through the pages, you watch the news as video film rather than read it.

    With about 100,000 sea animals being choked or injured by plastic every year, the danger produced by the billions of pieces of plastics in our oceans is well-known. However,    given that most of the micro-plastics measure less than 0.5mm, collecting them is a challenge.

    Now, some Dutch environmentalists have created a floating park to catch plastic waste before it reaches the open seas and breaks down. The large floating park is the result of a five-year effort of the Wageningen University and Research, WHIM Architecture, and etc. The team's leader said, "We began by developing a 'plastic fisher(渔船). Fitted with two folding arms with extension of several feet into the water, it uses a net to catch bottles, and any other garbage that floats past."

    The portable equipment took a year and a half to be perfect. It was then placed at the edge of the harbor to collect the urban garbage accumulated in the Meuse, a major European river, which rises in France and passes through Belgium and the Netherlands before it goes into the North Sea. Since Rotterdam's NieuweWaterweg canal links the river the North Sea, it's the ideal place to catch the "fresh" plastic waste before it disappears into the open waters and breaks down.

    The waste collected by the "plastic fisher" was then made into some hexagonal (六边的) floats which were connected to create the floating park. Some of the blocks are open to visitors, while others house various types of plants and even trees for nesting birds. The underside of the floats provides a suitable environment for sea creatures like fish. The environmentalists say the blocks can also be used to build sports areas and public walkways.

    The floating park has achieved great success. The team has launched a similar project in Indonesia to deal with local pollution. They worked with the local government and colleges which have given great support. And the team wants to spread their idea to some other places. When more and more people have better understanding of the project, more countries worldwide will know the advantages of the project and try similar outstanding approaches.

    Self-driving cars have been backed by the hope that they will save lives by getting involved in fewer crashes with fewer injuries and deaths than human-driven cars. But so far, most comparisons between human drivers and automated vehicles have been unfair.

    Crash statistics for human-driven cars are gathered from all sorts of driving situations, and on all types of roads. However, most of the data on self-driving cars' safety have been recorded often in good weather and on highways, where the most important tasks are staying in the car's own lane and not getting too close to the vehicle ahead. Automated cars are good at those tasks, but so are humans.

    It is true that self-driving cars don't get tired, angry, frustrated or drunk. But neither can they yet react to uncertain situations with the same skill or anticipation of an attentive human driver. Nor do they possess the foresight to avoid potential perils. They largely drive from moment to moment, rather than think ahead to possible events literally down the road.

    To a self-driving car, a bus full of people might appear quite similar to an uninhabited corn field. Indeed, deciding what action to take in an emergency is difficult for humans, but drivers have sacrificed themselves for the greater good of others. An automated system's limited understanding of the world means it will almost never evaluate (评估) a situation the same way a human would. And machines can't be programmed in advance to handle every imaginable set of events.

    Some people may argue that the promise of simply reducing the number of injuries and deaths is enough to support driverless cars. But experience from aviation (航空) shows that as new automated systems are introduced, there is often an increase in the rate of disasters.

    Therefore comparisons between humans and automated vehicles have to be performed carefully. To fairly evaluate driverless cars on how well they fulfill their promise of improved safety, it's important to ensure the data being presented actually provide a true comparison. After all, choosing to replace humans with automation has more effects than simply a one-for-one exchange.