中国学生代表陈梦竹毕业典礼致辞全文（英）
NYU Shanghai 2018 Commencement Speech
Student Speaker Chen Mengzhu
Dear Chancellor Yu, Vice Chancellor Lehman, President Hamilton, trustees, family and friends, and my beloved Class of 2018, welcome to your very last Global Perspective on Society class. I hope you all brought your clickers. If you didn’t, don’t worry, I am pretty confident about today’s attendance.
Thank you all for this wonderful opportunity, and it is a great honor to be here with you. I must say, it has been a wild ride. It is like crossing the road in Shanghai. We have played by the rules less the occasions, and thought outside of the box most of the time.
From Motel 268 to Jinqiao, to various campus dorms and homestay families around the world, our global experience was one of gulping down delicious food, struggling with linguistic challenges, finding cheap flights and getting over jet lag.
From our freshman year orientation to sitting here at the Oriental Art Center, our NYU Shanghai experience was one intertwined with surprise, laughter, growth and dedication. We have all witnessed multiple successful launches of the Pearl Tower as it disappears into the mist of PM 2.5; the AC that is never on the right temperature, and the inability to convert between Fahrenheit and Celsius after four years of college education; the street food lady whose phone number some of us might still retain; that one Mai Ba (麦霸) who never let go of the mic at KTV; and of course the lighthouse of the night that we call FamilyMart.
From Nine Masters to Compass Group to Sproutworks, we have made our cafeteria a living testimony of 民以食为天; From no student clubs and no sports team to NYU Shanghai Women’s Soccer team winning the Shanghai Intercollegiate League, we have celebrated from zero to one; from freshman year struggling with (or acing) calculus, to senior year turning in your thousand lines code or 30 page capstone project, we have not only met the bar, we set the bar.
Indeed, we have done some pretty awesome things. And I have no doubt that we will all sail off to accomplish even greater things. But I do hope that whatever comes in the way, storms or sunshine, we would always remember to be a good person, to choose to remain optimistic in spite of an occasionally cynical world; to choose to clutching to our sense of curiosity because lifelong learning will not only bring us a job but also great joy in sparkles of novel ideas; to choose to be appreciative even when the differences seem to be greater than similarities; to choose to be brave, to love whatever waits ahead.
I say “to choose to” because it is a conscious choice and oftentimes a very hard one. But then again we are a bunch that believe easy is no fun. I mean we have come to NYU Shanghai and it is no easy task to put this place on the map. But we did it. Sure, we have complained, but we have also taken actions. We have had some challenges, overcame most of them and enjoyed the rest because they define who we are.
I thought I would come out of my four years in college knowing exactly what I want to do in life, but here I am standing at the commencement ceremony, realizing that it was a process of deduction not induction. As we navigate in this turbulent world, we will inevitably feel disoriented, lost, frustrated, and anxious, but we are also equipped with an open mind, an intellectual cerebrum, and a major called “the world” to tackle on.
博观而约取，厚积而薄发。在这个愈加扁平化的世界里，全球化视野将为我们成为社会所需的多面手，打下坚实的基础。愿我们在最好的年华都能有一段可以感动自己的奋斗的血泪史。上海纽约大学给了我们一个远方，愿我们能用自己的双脚走出属于自己的远方。
In my almost all time favorite book Algorithms to Live By, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, two brilliant computer scientists wrote: “Don’t always consider all your options. Don’t necessarily go for the outcome that seems the best every time. Make a mess on occasion. Travel light. Let things wait. Trust your instincts and don’t think too long. Relax. Toss a coin. But remember, to thine own self be true.”
So it is with the greatest excitement and just a tad bit of regret that I must say “Class of 2018 -- Dismissed.”
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