Eighteen year-old Lin Jia Qi has helped us to celebrate another milestone in the history of our Institute. Lin is the first Milestone student to be published in an American journal, The Concord Review. The journal is the world’s first quarterly academic paper to publish research papers of high school students. For this occasion, we spoke to Lin (who is currently a senior Milestone student) and his mentor George Greskovits, our Director of Academic Studies.
In his paper, Lin describes the fall of China’s last dynasty through two life-changing revolutions. The essay seeks to answer why the imperial leadership was able to survive the first Taiping revolution yet fall during the 1911 Xinhai revolution. His work is not only important because it explores social change through a small segment, even with universal mechanism of action, but also because Lin’s work stood out from other candidates’ even under unfavorable circumstances.
Lin originally wrote the paper for a Cambridge competition, in which the applicants could choose from more than 100 topics. Lin’s mentor suggested that he also submit his paper to The Concord Review. Few people from Eastern Europe submit papers to The Concord Review due to the difficulty of competing with native English speakers. Not only must the writing be high quality, but the ideas in the paper must be developed at a very high level. Most applicants are from the United States and therefore have the benefit of writing in their native language.
Publication in The Concord Review was not Lin’s first success. Previously, he received an ‘honorable mention’ for a different paper he submitted for the Peterhouse College Vellacott History Prize. However, he considers publication in The Concord Review to be his most significant result so far.
In the year and a half I spent at Milestone I learned academic research and how to explore academic literature.
Lin specifically explored social phenomena while focusing on narrow topics. According to Lin, the professional orientation he received from Milestone was very helpful. The orientation enabled Lin to find an exciting question to explore and achieve a real scientific result.
George Greskovits, our Director of Academic Studies, mentored Lin while he researched and wrote his paper. George spoke about working with Lin and highlighted the importance of professional orientation:
In order for Lin to become skilled in research, I first encouraged Lin to explore the literature himself. At the right moment, I recommended more in-depth literature. Lin studied this literature and used it to improve work that was already at a high level.
Lin researched economic, social, educational, cultural and geopolitical topics while preparing to write his paper.
‘Milestone students collect their research from international scientific literature. This way, they read academic publications in English and not in their native language, allowing them to write in English, which is exceptional in Hungary’, added the mentor.
Publication of Lin’s paper gives him the chance to embark on a career in science. Next, he plans to continue his studies in the United Kingdom and he has also received offers from UCL, Lancaster University and University of Warwick. In the meantime, we can meet Lin in the classrooms of Milestone or in the common room with his friends.
Lin’s publication may be reached HERE.
