The Obsolete Oscilloscope
✏️ Authorship Note (click to expand)
This piece is 100% human-authored. No AI assistance was used in writing, editing, or proofreading this content. What you read here represents my authentic voice and personal perspective.
📚 Essay Submission Note (click to expand)
This piece was seelcted as the Community Essay of my college application.
For full context and more details , please check the 2025 reeditted version.
“A naive tyro, using a low-end oscilloscope [instrument for electronic measurement] and still being stubborn. What’s fake can never be real; you’re just a kid who can’t grow up,” a famous engineer in the Electronic DIY forum viciously cursed at me in my comment section.
As a self-taught ten-year-old, I was proud of myself for using an oscilloscope I had found at a junkyard and repaired to discover design flaws made by professional engineers. But that pride turned into helplessness with those cursive words: The engineer emphasized his expertise with technical terms beyond my knowledge. Worse still, he bluntly dismissed my findings due to my use of an outdated, broken oscilloscope. I felt ashamed of my ignorance and inability to afford better equipment. I felt like a foolish, poor, stubborn child.
Since childhood, my mad-brained passion for engineering had isolated me from peers. While they raced remote-control cars, I would immediately flip the car over, locate the screws or snaps, and quickly tear them down. My parents’ divorce at the time made life exhausting, shuttling between two homes, school and court. Lacking suitable playmates and getting frustrated in real life, I turned to online forums where no one knew my age. There, I could freely exchange knowledge with those real engineers, whom I envied for sharing their impressive DIY projects while garnering thousands of likes. Being accepted by those kindred spirits and professionals meant the world to me.
However, that engineer’s attack made me realize I needed to arm myself with knowledge, not just hands-on experience, to be a true engineer. I began self-studying university-level physics and electrical engineering, while continuing to replicate audiophile circuits and share them online as I consolidated my learning. When some netizens suggested me to post videos of my production process, I enjoyed honestly sharing my experiences. More surprising, some real engineers from tech giants followed me, from whom I received useful advice. The online communities became the main channel for me to learn knowledge and socialize.
I enjoyed tinkering with that obsolete oscilloscope using it to measure all sorts of things, and by chance I demonstrated a visual method to distinguish an audiophile player’s sound quality at a glance, going beyond just numerical indicators. I was shocked when my viewership exploded into the hundreds of thousands after I posted a series of videos based on this method. For a moment, I felt a bit lost amidst the thousands of likes. The constantly updating number of likes seemed to make me live a life of extravagance and indulgence.
But as my popularity grew, so did attempts to bribe me to promote inferior products and aggressive, and copy-pasted comments far worse than what upset me on that forum. I realized not everyone shared my pure intentions of connecting with kindred spirits and sharing knowledge. Many aimed to smear others for personal gain. Seeing the online world’s true nature, their attacks no longer saddened me, and I suddenly realized my original intention for posting videos—that was to contribute to the online forum. I refused all bribes and persisted, and was rewarded when manufacturers like Moondrop, who had confidence in their audiophile products, appreciated my sincerity and enlisted me to provide honest reviews.
On my 16th birthday, I used my video earnings to buy an advanced oscilloscope. Receiving it, I immediately thought back to that cyberbullying incident. Was I wronged? After a series of measurements, I got the answer, and the confusion of six years was finally resolved. With my current reputation on the online platform, I could easily post an article to prove my idea from back then, and the balance of public opinion would definitely tilt in my favor.
But I dismissed the idea in a few seconds. Although many spread lies and slander online for personal gain, I remain committed to giving back to this online world that supported me, taught me so much, and witnessed my growth, by contributing truly valuable information. An individual can’t change the world, but as a community of engineers sharing knowledge, we can accomplish great things together. With that in mind, I gently wiped clean that old, obsolete oscilloscope—it never needed external validation of its accuracy anyway. Just like me.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this piece, check out my other Stories & Writings.
Want to dive deeper into my technical work? Explore my Technical Portfolio.
For ongoing updates and quick technical notes, check out the Tech Notes.