Speech by Chen Weiwei, an outstanding graduate, at his alma mater.

Hello everyone! I am very happy to return to my alma mater and share my thoughts with you here.

After receiving the invitation of this speech, I found my friend and chatted. Among them are China people, British people, students who are now studying for doctoral degrees, and professionals who are doing well in all walks of life.

I asked them this question: If you were facing your thirteen-year-old self now, what would you say to your thirteen-year-old self?

After asking this question, they will be silent for a long time and think seriously without exception.

The answers received have their own characteristics, but in summary, there are similarities. I summarized these answers into two suggestions:

First, do your best in everything. Don't give up easily.

In this regard, I want to share the story that happened after I was admitted to Cambridge University. On June 5438+ 10, 2008, I received an email about my admission to Cambridge University. As you can imagine, I am very happy. However, this admission is conditional, and the condition is that my listening, speaking, reading and writing must reach 7 points in the next IELTS test. Scores above 5 points.

This requirement was very challenging for me at that time. I also learned that this is the highest language requirement put forward by Cambridge University since it enrolled Chinese mainland students.

I prepared for two months and took the first IELTS test. Reading, listening and speaking all met the requirements easily, but I only got 6 points in writing, but I didn't meet the requirements of 7. Five points.

IELTS writing was a very difficult project for me at that time, because I had little contact with English writing, which meant that the reconstruction of thinking mode and a lot of repeated exercises could not be completed overnight.

Therefore, I try my best to practice English writing and keep the practice frequency of one article every day. I also have a notebook with me. Every time I see a good expression or article structure in a book, I will summarize and extract it. I have done all the IELTS writing questions over the years.

Speaking of which, you may think that I have succeeded in the IELTS test for the second time, but this is not the case. Then I took IELTS three times, and my writing improved to 7, but I still didn't reach 7. The requirement of 5 points.

Time flies to August, and Cambridge starts school in June 10. I only have two months. The college that accepted me also urged me to provide the required grades as soon as possible, otherwise I could only cancel the admission.

As you can imagine, I was under a lot of pressure at that time, so close to Cambridge, and my dream seemed to be touched on tiptoe, just a little bit worse.

At that time, I felt very anxious from time to time, but I tried my best to calm myself down, because I knew very well that anxiety at this moment would not help. All I need to do is to calm down and review carefully.

Finally, in the final fifth IELTS test, I met the requirements of Cambridge. Up to now, I still remember the anxiety of waiting for the result and the joy after learning the result.

Many years later, I thanked myself at that time, worked hard and never gave up.

The second suggestion: life is a long-term and continuous accumulation process, don't care about temporary gains and losses. I hope you can keep a growth-oriented thinking mode, learn from your own experience and past, and keep moving forward.

This idea was put forward by an English friend of mine. He said, Wei Wei, you must tell my story to the children: he was born in a small town in Wales, England, and his grades were not very good since he was a child, which basically belonged to the bottom of his class. But this did not affect his attitude towards life. He has an unusual interest in photography since he was a child. His favorite thing to do is to take pictures of his family and friends with a camera and record his life.

In the eyes of many people, photography is just a pastime of life. But for my friend, this love has gone deep into the bone marrow. After graduating from college, his career has just started. As an unknown artist, he has experienced numerous rejections. He was rejected by photography magazines and brokerage companies. But he never gave up. Faced with rejection, he is more motivated to improve his work. I watched him develop bit by bit, and his works were appreciated by more and more people. The year before last, I received advertisements from Nike and the British Navy. Last year, he won the international photography award; Last week, he told me that one of his predecessors, a well-known producer in the industry, offered to cooperate with him.

You see, with this love and interest, how successful he is. I asked him, didn't you feel anxious when you didn't get good grades when you were a child and started your photography career but no one recognized you? How to face such a dilemma?

He said that those moments that were regarded as "difficulties" by ordinary people, I regarded them as temporary opportunities and never cared. I have never been anxious, and I have never compared myself with others. We should focus on our own goals, make sure that this goal is what we really want, and make sure that this dream blueprint is written by ourselves. I have never tried to surpass others. Facing the success of other photographers, I always want to learn something from them. Because I never care about external gains and losses, nor do I compete with others at will, but only care about my own internal accumulation.

I talked with some students in the audience, and many junior high school students like you told me: I feel very confused now, except for a clear goal-that is, to get good grades in the senior high school entrance examination and get into a good high school. Otherwise, I don't know what I really want.

I experienced such a confused state when I was your age, and so did my friends around me. Not only junior high school, but also college, after work, I suddenly don't know what to do in the future from time to time.

How to deal with it? Our suggestion is: do everything you can and do all the tasks that need to be completed before you. I hope all of you viewers will never stop trying to be the best-you can control it. At the same time, I also want to mention three small principles: no complaints, no complaints, no excuses. Take action, no matter what you do, do your best. What really matters is that if you always try your best, the result will be what they should be.

It is only important to be calm, not arrogant and impetuous, to learn and grow from your own experience and past, and to keep moving forward.

That's the end of my speech, thank you!

Label: Alma mater graduate Alice Chan