Commencement: Follow Your Heart
Jul 09-2021
On June 26th, a joint commencement for this year’s graduates was held by the National School of Development and the Institute of South-South Cooperation and Development, both of which are part of Peking University.
In his commencement address, Prof. Yao Yang, Dean of the NSD, expresses his warmest congratulations to the 863 graduates, including 187 newly-minted MBA students. To steer clear of ‘involution’ and ‘lying flat’, the young people should seek out their unique potential and follow their heart, urges Prof. Yao. Competition is ubiquitous, but one can choose a race track where he or she has a competitive edge. Not only can NSD graduates become scientists, economists, entrepreneurs or politicians, they can also run a successful business selling pork or pursue a career as a stand-up comedian, as two PKU graduates have successfully demonstrated, says Prof. Yao.
Prof. Liu Guo’en, Director of the NSD’s Academic Committee, highlights the positioning and cultural elements of national development in his commencement address. The studies of national development, he points out, require broader temporal and spatial demensions, so as to overcome short-sightedness and deepen integration with the rest of the world. He calls on the graduates to aim to become ‘a person of noble character’ (jun zi), the highest ideal of human dignity in Chinese culture.
Mr. Liu Yonghao, Chairman of the Board of New Hope Group, is a guest speaker at the commencement. His company posted a turnover of 200 billion yuan in 2020, for which he gives credit to China’s reform and opening up. He advises the graduates to take graduation as a new beginning for life-long learning, persist in worthy causes, and live a life in honesty. He wishes all a journey of discovery, vitality and harvest.
