Orion Crest, Series_1

Chapter 13: The best choice

　　Ten o'clock in the morning, Mathematics Department Office. Professor Tang, who was sitting in front of his desk and staring at the computer screen, was revising the thesis.

　　Every time he saw that logical and meticulous calculation in the paper, even though using a critical eye, want to find out the loopholes and the discussion was perfect and not a single line of arithmetic was redundant. What he could do was only to help him make some slight corrections in the essay's wordplay and some of the English grammatical parts.

　　"awesome", Professor Tang leaned back in his chair.

　　Just then, the door opened. The visitor neither knocked nor greeted. Professor Tang frowned, but after seeing the person, his frown spread again, and a smile appeared on his face. Lu Fangping, the head of Mathematics Department, was not only a colleague, but also an old friend and classmate.

　　"Old Tang, why is your phone switched off? I couldn't find you on the phone." Walking through the door, Professor Lu then greeted with a smile.

　　"Hehe, I have to switch off my phone in the days after the exams every year, you know." Old Tang smiled, leaned back in his chair, picked up a thermos cup and sipped his tea, saying in an old-fashioned manner, "Haven't you been quite busy recently?"

　　"There's something which I need help!"

　　"Alright, what do you need my help for, just say it directly."

　　"Hey, the National Mathematical Modelling Competition starts in September, let's try to organize a few more teams, together with the College of Software, and if we can win a few more national championships, which is also considered to be more glory for the college, and also for our university!"

　　By the way, it also adds some extra credit to the year-end teaching and research evaluation. Of course, Director Lu naturally wouldn't say these things.

　　"You want to ...... invite me to be an instructor?" Tang frowned slightly, although mathematical modelling and mathematical research were both mathematics, they were completely different. "But I'm in purely theoretical mathematical research, I'm afraid I can't help in this aspect of mathematical modelling." 

　　"No, the faculty group have all been arranged, I just want to borrow some students, are there any outstanding talents?" 

　　"Alright, just in time, there is a talent I'd like recommend to you. Orion Crest from the Applied Maths class, go ahead and use that guy."

　　"Orion Crest? "Professor Lu frowned, "This name seems like I've seen it somewhere ......" Suddenly, he remembered, wasn't this name the same student who finished the paper in less than half an hour and still got it all right, when he supervised the Advanced Algebra exam yesterday?

　　But ......, He was only a freshman!

　　The National University Student Mathematical Modelling Competition is not the traditional 'Olympic Mathematics Examination' where you are given a questionnaire to complete. The former focuses not only on the mastery of theory, but also on the ability of college students to apply theoretical knowledge to solve practical problems.

　　According to the experience of previous competitions, the success of the Mathematical Modelling Competition is not completely positively correlated with the mathematical scores of the participants, but the students who have balanced scores in all subjects are more likely to perform well in the competition.

　　Moreover, due to the wide range of topics covered in the competition, it is difficult for freshmen to play a role in the competition due to the limitation of their knowledge.