Who would study psychology unless they had some issues?!

There were quite a few people in the Judo Hall. Besides the two big guys currently locked in a fierce grapple, not far away there was also a female member with a student-like temperament and another with a corporate-executive temperament.

Anyone who comes to practice judo, at their core, more or less carries the genes of a bloodthirsty spectator. But right now, the male-on-male showdown that had been the focus of everyone’s attention was already over, and the two female spectators’ gazes couldn’t help but shift to Nan Zhubin.

Meanwhile, Nan Zhubin was mulling over what Chonghui had just said.

How should he get through the new semester?

Nan Zhubin really had thought about this question carefully, and he did have some concerns.

After thinking for a moment, Nan Zhubin shifted his gaze away from the two sweat-drenched burly men in front of him and turned instead to Chonghui, this muscle-bound PhD student.

"The professor asked me for my class schedule earlier, but our timetable for this semester hasn’t been arranged yet," Nan Zhubin said. "Senior, do we have a lot of classes in first-year applied psychology?"

Chonghui let out a small chuckle at that: "It’s normal. The teachers in our student affairs group are especially lazy. Especially for you first-years—the first week after the semester starts, you basically have no classes. They say it’s to let you adjust to life, and they have to organize opening lectures, trainings, that kind of thing. They probably won’t schedule your courses until a few days later."

"As for whether you have many classes or not..."

Chonghui pondered, actually knowing very well what Nan Zhubin was worried about.

Nan Zhubin had already spent some time doing his first year of grad school at Jiangdu University; he had essentially finished most of the coursework. Now doing it all over again would be a bit of a waste of time. And by Chonghui’s estimation, this junior might well have even pre-studied the material.

"Have you already previewed the first-year courses?" Chonghui asked bluntly.

"I asked around—they said there are no textbooks," Nan Zhubin said. That’s how graduate courses usually are.

"The only one with a textbook is College English, but because I scored relatively high on the entrance exam, I can apply for an exemption," Nan Zhubin added. "As for the other professional courses, there are only the professors’ ’recommended reading lists’. I bought the e-versions these past few days and have basically already gone through them."

Taking only ten counseling cases a month, Nan Zhubin, besides coming to the Judo Hall with Chonghui to strengthen his body, had also spent a lot of time reading.

Chonghui sighed with emotion: "So you’ve pretty much already finished your first year, huh."

He knew that with Nan Zhubin’s ability, saying he had "gone through" the books definitely didn’t mean he had just skimmed them once.

Chonghui said regretfully: "But considering that from the second year on you’ll have to do projects, go on business trips and so on, the first-year coursework is probably the heaviest, and the vast majority of courses will be crammed into the first semester of the first year."

In other words, the next six months would likely be the busiest period for Nan Zhubin—busy attending classes he had already mastered.

"So your schedule will be pretty packed, and chopped up into bits," Chonghui said sympathetically. "Most of the week will probably be 8 a.m. classes. You might have one or two big time blocks in a day without class, but it still won’t be enough time for you to go to the company to do counseling..."

Meaning that even the counseling work dearest to Nan Zhubin would have to wait until the weekends.

Nan Zhubin clicked his tongue.

"But if there are projects, the professor can file forms with the student affairs group. As long as it’s during the period of project collaboration, even if you don’t attend classes for an entire semester you won’t fail—of course, you won’t get any participation or usual-performance points either."

"But as long as you hand in the small regular assignments and the final project for the course, you still won’t flunk."

Chonghui said, "For grad school, as long as you don’t fail, you’re fine. As for all the scholarships and merit awards, those are directly tied to research output. I heard that last year the second-year student who got the First-Class Scholarship had an average final score of under seventy, but because they published a core paper in a Tier-2 journal, they basically had no competition."

Final exams for graduate-level professional courses were no longer the old format of the professor writing a paper test and all the students gathering to take it. In most cases, professors preferred to use in-class presentations or short papers as the form of the final exam.

This information was actually quite new to Nan Zhubin, because his previous grad life at Jiangdu University hadn’t even lasted until final exams.

Nan Zhubin thought for a moment and asked tactfully, "Then does the professor have any long-term projects going on recently that might keep me from attending classes?"

Chonghui’s expression showed that he’d gotten the subtext, but he soon let out a sigh.

"Lately... the professor hasn’t exactly been aggressive about getting projects."

Not just lately, and not just "not aggressive."

"I’ll help you ask about it later," Chonghui could only say in the end.

Hearing this, Nan Zhubin could only nod for now.

But they didn’t dwell on this problem for long, because a call came from the side—

"Xiao Nan, want to give it a try?"

The cauliflower-ear guy who had just been standing next to Nan Zhubin suddenly turned around. He was the owner of this Judo Hall and had just been going over the gains and losses of the match with the two members who had finished their bout.

At this moment, he had set his sights on Nan Zhubin.

"Dahui’s brought this little brother of his here so many times already, and he’s never once had a real spar with the other members. Judo is all about improving faster through live sparring, you know."

The cauliflower-ear owner suggested with a smile, "How about... giving it a try?"

Chonghui blinked. He’d mainly been bringing Nan Zhubin here to build up his health and really had never let him spar with other members.

On the one hand, he himself could control his strength and wasn’t afraid of injuring Nan Zhubin; on the other hand, Nan Zhubin’s mere presence was, for other men, a bit of a mockery in itself, and he was somewhat worried about him getting hurt.

But after all this time, why was the cauliflower-ear owner suddenly suggesting that Nan Zhubin do a sparring round today?