Professor Dennis Lo, Professor Nesterov, Professor Wu, dear incoming students, parents and family members, colleagues and friends, good morning!
Welcome and thank you for joining us as we gather to witness the beginning of an exciting new journey. This year, over 2000 undergraduate students, over 3000 postgraduate students are joining CUHK-Shenzhen, including international students from 28 countries and regions from across the world. On behalf of the university, I give you my warmest welcome and congratulations! Today you officially become part of the CUHK-Shenzhen community, a community of diversity, openness, and commitment to excellence. From this day forward, this campus will be more than a place where you study. It is my hope that it will be where you discover who you are, what you value, and how you can build meaningful connections with the world beyond. Are you ready?
大家上午好!今天,我们齐聚神仙湖畔,举行香港中文大学(深圳)2026年入学典礼,今年我们有来自全国21个省市以及港澳台地区录取的2000多名本科生,包括来自28个国家及地区的450名国际生,以及3000多名硕士、博士研究生加入到香港中文大学(深圳)的大家庭,你们从五湖四海来到这里,带着梦想与憧憬,为这座校园注入了崭新的活力,在此我谨代表大学全体师生欢迎你们的到来!祝贺你们!我亦要感谢Prof. Dennis Lo, Prof. Nesterov, Prof. Wu为同学们带来的精彩演讲,相信会为同学们带来思想的启迪与人生的智慧。
Students, for many of you, this may be the first time you have left home. Why is leaving home so important? Because it marks the moment when life becomes larger than what you have previously known. “Home” does not literally mean the place you have lived. It can mean your familiar routines, your comfort zones, your past habits, your previous achievements and disappointments. Whatever they are, do not let them become the walls of your prison. The most important thing about a university education is to step beyond those walls. At this university, I hope you will open your eyes and enlarge your world. And to do that, you need the curiosity to explore and the willingness to try, to make mistakes, and to learn. This is the most important message of my speech today.
我记得乔布斯在斯坦福大学演讲时讲过一句话:We have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future. 他当年旁听了一门书法课,学的是衬线字体和字间距。当时看来有什么用?毫无用处。可是十年后,当他设计第一台Macintosh电脑时,这门课的全部知识都回来了。同学们,如果乔布斯当年不敢去点那道“书法”的菜,就没有后来的手机美学。
Students, the university is not and should not be the repetition of your high school. Your life at this stage should be much more expansive, and much more open-ended. We offer so much more than knowledge accumulation. I would encourage you to go to lectures in a field you have never studied before, join a student club to cultivate your interest, work with peers from different cities, countries, and background, and engage in conversations that challenge your assumptions. Embrace experiences that cannot be quantified by your GPA. This includes a summer spent in volunteering and community service, a book that makes you cry, a game or competition that you and your friends give your all to, even if you lose, a question that stays with you after the class is over.
I hope you will be bold enough to explore, brave enough to embrace failure, and wise enough to learn from them. Don’t stay silent in class discussion because you don’t have the correct answer. Don’t shy away from a conversation because you don’t speak perfect English. Don’t walk away from an opportunity because you feel there are better candidates than you. Don’t wait until you feel confident to start doing things. It works the other way around. We become confident by doing.