-Speech at the First Postgraduate Graduation Ceremony and Degree Awarding Ceremony of Tsinghua University 20th/KLOC-0th/5th.

Chen Jining, President of Tsinghua University

201565438+1On October 27th, the 20th15th first graduation ceremony was held in Tsinghua University. Chen Jining, President of Tsinghua University, delivered a speech with the theme of "Choice and Persistence" at the graduation ceremony. Chen Jining and his classmates shared three magic weapons, the mentality of "starting from small things, starting from now, and not complaining about others"; Pay "10,000 hours" for your dream; No matter facing opportunities or challenges, you can have the mind and courage to give up.

Dear students:

Today, * * * has doctoral and master students 13 18. First of all, on behalf of the school, I congratulate the students on their efforts to complete their studies! At the same time, I would like to extend my sincere respect and heartfelt thanks to the teachers who have carefully guided you, nurtured your family and supported your relatives and friends all the way!

I've been thinking about what to say to you on this occasion recently. As you all know, in the past few graduation ceremonies, I talked about ideals, responsibilities, conscience, awe and other topics about values and beliefs, and encouraged students to shoulder the heavy responsibility of promoting national prosperity, national rejuvenation and human civilization and progress while realizing their self-worth and fulfilling their family responsibilities. This is not only the hope for my classmates to be human and do things, but also some insights and experiences I have experienced myself. Today, the topic I want to communicate with you is: choice and persistence. Not long ago, when I was visiting Taiwan Province Province, I saw a book called The Outsider. The content of this book is very consistent with the theme of last year's school education seminar, so I bought it and read it quickly on my way back to Beijing. There are many stories in the book to illustrate the important role of social environment and opportunities in a person's success. However, I got some new and different feelings and inspirations from these stories, and I want to share them with you.

The first thing is to start from now, start from small things, and don't complain. This book tells the story of the Canadian national ice hockey team. The author found a regular phenomenon among the players of these national teams-most of them were born in 1 and February, and few were born at the end of the year. The reason for this phenomenon is that in Canada, a country crazy about ice hockey, coaches will select young players aged 9 to 10 to form a "tour group", and the time limit for grouping is exactly 65438+ 10/0/,in other words, 65438+ 1 0/0. For 10 children, the age gap of several months is still obvious. Those children born in older months are more mature and more likely to win the competition in the same group. Once the young players are selected, they will have better coaches, better teammates and participate in more games. Over time, these children's grades will get better and better, and the best of them will enter the national team. Athletes born in the big month are lucky enough to get those tiny opportunities from the beginning, and gradually accumulate these opportunities into their own advantages through hard work, and finally become national team players. This rule exists not only in ice hockey in Canada, but also in baseball in the United States, football in Europe and even school education.

This tells us that the initial stage of anything is very important. Don't ignore it because it's small, and don't do it seriously because it's just started. Students, after you leave school, every little thing around you may be an opportunity to accumulate future development advantages. I hope that everyone will take this first step towards society, starting from small things, starting from now, starting from bit by bit, and integrating their growth into the torrent of national development and social progress. Even if you encounter difficulties and setbacks, you should never be negative and pessimistic. This is the first experience I want to talk about.

Second, we must persist for a long time, devote ourselves wholeheartedly, and don't give up easily. Everyone has many opportunities to watch high-level performances at school. When we are intoxicated with melodious music, we often admire the superb skills of performers, which may be attributed to their extraordinary talents. The book "Outsider" tells another discovery: students majoring in violin and piano began to learn piano at the age of five. By the age of 20, those students who have the potential to become world-class soloists have practiced at least 10000 hours, those students who are considered excellent have practiced for a total of 8000 hours, while those students who are considered as music instructors in the future have only practiced for 4000 hours. This is the so-called "10000 hour rule". If a person's skills are to reach the world level, his or her practice time usually needs to exceed 10000 hours. This rule has also been fulfilled in many well-known celebrities. For example, Bill Gates spent almost all his teenage time developing computer programs. From 1968, when he was in seventh grade, he dropped out of his sophomore year to start Microsoft. During this period, Gates continued programming for 7 years, far exceeding 10000 hours. It is said that there were no more than 50 people who experienced Gates in the world at that time. Therefore, when the 1975 personal computer begins to enter the dawn of the family era, the people who can occupy the most favorable position and embrace the first light are naturally the Gates. Not long ago, Facebook founder Zuckerberg came to Tsinghua to give a speech. I asked him a question-what is the most important thing for entrepreneurs? He replied without thinking, "Don't give up". We ancients also said that those who walk a hundred miles are half ninety. Only by persistently doing one thing can we have a profound understanding and understanding of things and gain unique insights, which is an indispensable and important process for a person to grow up. Without such accumulation, even if the opportunity comes to you, it is difficult to grasp it. Therefore, the difference between mediocrity and Excellence lies not in talent, but in long-term persistence and continuous investment. This is the second experience I want to tell you.

The third point I want to say is to know how to choose, not to do something, and not to be tempted by immediate interests. In the second half of last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook had a conversation in Tsinghua. When asked "What was the most difficult decision you made in the past three years", Cook replied that the most difficult thing was "deciding what not to do". Because Apple has too many great and exciting ideas. He was asked again, is it necessary to choose the best from the good ideas and remove the second best? Surprisingly, Cook said, all our ideas are the best, but Apple can only choose one of them and try its best, and the others will give up decisively. Students, people's growth is a process of constant choice. For excellent people, choice is the biggest challenge in life. Today, when you enter the society, you will face all kinds of opportunities and temptations, as well as many challenges and setbacks. At this time, you are answering questions related to "choice". I hope that everyone, whether facing opportunities or challenges, can have the courage to give up, can choose the most valuable things from national interests and public welfare, concentrate on doing it, and make themselves better in the cause of serving the country and contributing to society.

Students, just now I talked about three insights I got from many people and things. Of course, even if you do these three things, you may not get the desired results. Just now, Tong's alumni talked about many setbacks and failures since he started his business in 2000. But I believe that as long as you start from small things, start from now, persevere and dare to give up, you will have a deeper understanding of success and failure from every experience. At that time, the world still belonged to you, and the space for creating a wonderful life was still open for you. As dear Zhu Rongji said to Tsinghua students in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the School of Economics and Management, "Try boldly, don't be afraid of failure; You are still young, and it doesn't matter if you fail. "

Thank you!