SSDPP CDC Cohort 2014 Students’ Representative Commencement Speech

Distinguished officials of the Beijing Normal University, director of the CDC program professor Zhang Qiang, members of the faculty of the School of Social Development and Public Policy, dear Miss. Zhu Lei, respectable parents and guests, dear fellow classmates and friends,

Thank you for being here at this happy occasion when the Cohort 2014 proudly graduates from the Contemporary Development of China international masters program!

The seventeen of us met for the first time ever at the same place in the Teaching Building Number 2, for our very first class, Public Policy Analysis. Since that September 2014, we have been trying to learn more about China, the Chinese society, its problems and solutions, about the world and the policies that govern it, about local and global issues of the contemporary world. Through various courses and lectures, with the help of our professors and the school staff, we succeeded, sometimes more, sometimes less, in answering the questions that have risen from our studies. Along the way, we even succeeded in making more issues and generating more questions ourselves.

For example, Bartek of Poland would often point at the little inconsistencies that would pop up here and there in graphs, charts and tables. Denis would occasionally have to answer that urgent phone call during the class. Chris, from… well, the world, would more often than not… HAVE A QUESTION… all sorts; while Joey from the USA would… weeell… take …. his… time…. in answering… Our scholar Sam from Liberia, Dafne from Argentina, Comfort from Cameroon, Eszter from Hungary, Mariana from Portugal and Vania from the US… your memorable moments have been so many during these two years – we will leave the whole evening to remember them. Peter from Tanzania bravely defends the fort of Dorm 13 after everyone else had left it. His country mate, Yussuf… throughout our classes, he would usually just sit quietly in his wisdom. Beyan from Liberia together with Diego from Brazil, deserve a special thank you for helping organize today’s event as it is. Austin of the USA would be the champion of the NGO class. Aneta would polish (all pun intended) our discussions with her European take on issues, yours truly from Serbia would spam you with looong emails trying to kindly invite you to the ASG lectures.

The eighteenth member of our group has been Miss Zhu Lei, who has been enriching our email inbox folders with emails, always hoping that they find her “dear all students in good health and good study”.

Of course, all these happened under the eyes of our professors and supervisors, Pierre Miege, Wang Xinsong, Karl Johnson, Tim Tian, professors Yang Lichao and Lijun, proferssors Liu and Guo, professor Julaikha, professor Suowei and Sa Zhihong, professors Hu and Salazar, to all of whom I would like to say thank you for extending our deadlines, or… better yet… for accepting our papers, essays, and drafts, after all deadlines have long passed. Thank you for sharing with us what you have learnt and experienced. Keep your standards high and make the future generations of this program even better that what we have become.

And of course, professor Braven Zhang Qiang has been here to make sure that the world hears about the SSDPP and the CDC and all other acronyms of the BNU. Let’s hope that your frequent absence from the hallways of our school be fruitful and that, when we step out into the world we can proudly show our diplomas, whatever the degree be written on it eventually.

Finally, let me share with you this:

As I was preparing for this speech, I googled and baidu-ed and interneted the greatest graduation speeches to see what those who are better speakers than me had said in similar occasions. What seems to be symptomatic in them is that the speakers always give some sort of advice to the audience. And, sometimes, people, or those that I have met, myself included, usually give out those pieces of advice that they should follow themselves. So, let me so proudly share my bit of advice, and you all have the reason to call me in a few years and check on me to see if I have followed through…

So, for the professors, keep looking for ways to bring the best possible out of your students, inspire them and challenge them. It will make them better in the process of learning and later in process of creating, and it will make you better professors along the way, and potentially both sides would make the world a better place.

For the students, for our side, whatever it is that you do in your life, do it in the best possible way. Push your limits and realize fully your potentials. Be brave, don’t be sloppy and don’t leave thing half done half undone. Improve your master thesis, make them excellent reading pieces – because you can!, publish them, put your research to good use. As professor Karl Johnson once said, you are much better writers that what you think you are, it is just that you always submit only the first draft as your final paper… Grow and better yourself. One day, even if you get positions or jobs simply by being someone’s son or mother or neighbor, do that job excellently. The world is a web and whatever you do has an effect on the next person. Make sure that in a few years or even tomorrow, when we meet again somewhere in the world, we all have something to be proud of and something that we have done that makes us happy. As we all should be today.

Congratulations Cohort 2014, well done!

Aleksandra Radenovic

SSDPP Contemporary Development of China

2016 Graduate