15级本科生吴娅锦在2018北外国际商学院新生开学典礼上的讲话

撰稿：xuya   2018年09月10日   浏览 2885 次

北京外国语大学国际商学院

金融学2015级本科生 吴娅锦

Dear professors, school faculty, distinguished guests, and, lest we forget, all the freshmen of class 2018, good morning and welcome. I’m Wu Yajin of class 2015. It’s a privilege and genuine pleasure to welcome everyone to International Business School of Beijing Foreign Studies University. But before I start, today is September 10th, teachers’ day. So let’s give a round of applause to all teachers, professors and all school faculties, thank you and happy teachers’ day!

Standing here today on behalf of all senior students, I look around in this hall: you look so irrepressibly eager and impossibly young that I find myself transported back to that sense of fresh beginnings and infinite possibility that I experienced from my very first days in BFSU. Each fall I would then come to consider what it means to "begin again". So now, if I have any heartful thought, well, here it is: university is about all the possibilities you could explore.

Coming along the way, I’ve been the grade monitor of class 2015, a member of Student Union, a team leader of Aiesec BFSU, a volunteer teacher in Xiangshan Youth Palace. I’ve managed an entrepreneurial charity project to save the endangered traditional heritage Maohou, I’ve played the role of Elizabeth in a Pride and Prejudice drama, I’ve participated in a list of business competitions including the APEX Business Competition held by IBS and the HSBC Business Case competition, I’ve had 3 different internship experiences, I’ve drafted projects from scratch as well as drowned in the sea of documents during due diligence. Certainly I’ve made plans and prepared myself as much as possible but, for most occasions, you simply cannot prepare yourself enough. Fact is, chances don’t come around very often and when they do, make sure you reach out for them. College years will perhaps mark your most liberal years with the least trial-and-error cost in your whole life, so don’t ever be afraid to try out new things or take on new roles.

As you should start expecting the imminent four years in IBS, keep in mind what college education is about. I believe that all IBS students have great learning ability as well as learning attitude, but some may be deluded by an opinion that you don’t need to study hard any more in college. Letting loose of yourself would be highly ill-advised and irresponsible because every course taught in our curriculum is a building block for your future development. Luckily to their multitude, we have over 100 prestigious scholars, professors and teachers. They will push the frontiers of knowledge; deepen our understanding and practice of economics theories; peer into the real world business operations, and unravel the mysteries of the functioning of society. We should take full advantage of the great resources we have, by engaging ourselves in hands-on case studies, in-class participations and extracurricular experiences. In addition to offering top-notch educational resources, our school provides us with abundant opportunities to study abroad and exchange. I for one example have enrolled in the exchange program to go to Nanyang Technological University in Singapore last year. We are working in an increasingly global context. Certain exposure to the international environment would be beneficial regarding knowledge acquisition, diversity tolerance as well as business insight take-on. This also strikes as a reminder that as we are studying in BFSU, which offers the best chance to learn languages, it’s only more important that we study a foreign language well no matter English or Spanish, because our key strength and competitiveness lies exactly within our well-known dual degree programs.

On the other hand, the business of the college education is not only to train us the techniques to earn bread, but to put us in touch with what the best human minds have thought. Some of you will go to tech industry and make great contributions to empower individuals and societies and maybe even design life-changing apps, some of you will go to finance industry and strike deals on stock issuance and mergers and acquisitions, some of you will go to government and other purpose-driven organizations, and some may even become artists. But all of you have one thing in common: you will all seek to find that sweet spot that satisfies your ambition and success and happiness. There’s no silver bullet, no single formula, no reductive list. We should all understand that happiness and success result from an accumulation of thousands of little things built on character, all of which have certain common features in my observation. So dear class 2018, always remember to be kind and never cease learning.

Four years comes by so fast. You might or might not know for sure what you can do or who you will become in the future, but your life has just unrolled it in front of you. Right here in this moment, you are the very youth energy IBS is blessed to have. So as you’re embarking on a new journey, , I would like to say welcome to IBS family on behalf of all the senior students, and I wish you be as wise as you are smart, as restless as you are proud, as bold as you are thoughtful and as humble as you are great.

Thank you!