谈到成为完美的自己，

蔡语婧，是一个很好的例子。

这位来自南京的中国姑娘，

因为在波士顿大学的毕业演讲，

火遍了网络，

被盛赞为

“2017年美国毕业演讲典礼上的最美中国姑娘”。

在6分多钟的英文演讲中，

她不仅分享了在波士顿大学6年的求学经历，

还从自身经历出发强调了在多元文化背景下，

不同群体间互相包容和理解的重要性。

能成为数学金融科学的硕士研究生，

意味着她们要：

“经常泡在年级自习室和图书馆，

经常为考试做准备，

或者是用毫无止境的方程式来填充团队荣誉墙。”

而能成为学生代表，

在这一重要的场合发表演讲，

说明蔡语婧是佼佼者中的佼佼者。

蔡语婧毕业演讲的主题是“文化多样性”。

她从小生活在中国的六朝古都——南京，

本科、研究生就读于美国，

浸染了六年的西方文化。

期间还去巴黎参加海外交流实习项目。

中国、美国、法国，

在这三个国家的生活、工作体验，

促进了她对多元文化的进一步了解，

也让她越发地认识到，

作为独立的个体，

能认识到和包容不同种类的文化，

能和不同文化背景的人融洽相处，

这有多么不容易，

同时，有多么重要。

这样的演讲，

让我们看到了“视野”和“格局”，

而回想前段时段同样引发热议的

马里兰大学杨同学的毕业演讲，

两者相较，高下立判。

（二）

刚去美国时，

蔡语婧和大多数中国留学生都一样，

喜欢待在自己的“舒适圈”里，

喜欢和文化背景相似、

年龄相仿的人交流。

而渐渐地，

当她意识到她的周围有那么多

来自不同国家的同学，

当她惊觉自己对其他国家的文化

所知甚少的时候，

她终于下定决心要做出改变，

走出生活的舒适圈，

去认识圈子外更多的人。

在Questrom商学院，

她能够很容易地接触到来自世界各地的同学。

但是“理解”和“包容”二词说起来容易，

做起来却难。

她经历过没有人听懂她讲的笑话的尴尬，

感受过提一些可能被认为“愚蠢”问题时的忐忑，

当捍卫自己信念却只得到怀疑和厌恶时，

她也会感到愤怒。

但是正是因为不易，

所以才更有坚持的意义。

当用一种全新的视角去看待这个世界时，

最初可能是不适和怀疑，

但坚持久了，

自然能发现那些让自己感到惊奇的东西，

这就是我们增加阅历的过程。

以下为演讲全文：

Greetings! Friends, family,faculty and staff. Welcome to Boston University on such a beautiful Fridaynight.

My name is Yujing Cai, and I am agraduate from the Master of Mathematical Finance program. I come from Nanjing,China, one of the oldest cities in the world. Right now, my family is sittingsomewhere over there. They travelled, literally across half of the world to seetheir baby girl graduate and talk in a language they don’t understand.Therefore, I am tremendously honored to share my perspective of 6 years at theQuestrom School of Business.

One of the things I always enjoyeddoing while waiting for classes was looking at the different country flags inour atrium. Sometimes my friends and I even have silly competitions going on tosee who knew more flags, and it often amazed me how many different cultures andnationalities are represented in our community.

In a community, so diverse, mutualunderstanding doesn’t come easily, so I tried hard to be adaptive from the beginning.Soon, I found myself adjusting to the bigger food portion, and railways in themiddle of the road. I even tried fortunes cookies for the first time in mylife! Soon, I felt so content with this progress and I gradually built a cozy nestwith people of my culture, my age, and who thought and acted exactly like Idid. Why bother talking to anyone else? The coursework and job-hunting werealready so tiring, and meeting people outside my circle just seemed so scaryand unnecessary.

Then one day something changed. It wasa normal school day, and I was in the atrium looking at the flags as always. Isaw that the flag of China was surrounded nicely by the flags of Canada, Chile,Colombia, and DR Congo, and suddenly it struck me that I didn’t know anyone ofthose nationalities. What a waste it was for me to ignore the diversity ofexperience and opinions that the Questrom community had to offer! I wasdetermined to change, but it wasn’t easy.

I experienced the awkwardness ofhaving to explain a joke that no one understood, the nervousness of askingquestions about other cultures that seemed so obvious and silly, and the angerof defending my beliefs only to get suspicion and aloofness in return.Fortunately, these discomforts weresoon taken over by things like the amusementof teaching my classmates to pronounce my last name, Cai, using a part of theirtongue that they didn’t know existed, the excitement of promoting our Math Finance cultureawareness events in the Questrom Graduate Council, the satisfactionof knowingall the secret authentic restaurants around Boston and the astonishment ofseeing the world and myself in a way that I could never have imaged before.

During the past 2 years of graduateschool and 4 years of undergraduate before that, I have been so proud to seethat our school grew fromSchool of Management to Questrom School of Business,and that our community is growing stronger and more vibrant each year, and thiscouldn’thave happened without the effort of everyone here to share, to inspire, and toembrace each other.

Let’s now think about the future. 20 yearsfrom now, what kind of challenges are we going to face, as family members, asbusiness owners, as human beings? Nobody knows.To cope with that amount ofuncertainty, we will need a diverse set of skills and knowledge, andmost importantof all, an open mind to learn. That’s why we have beenso lucky to be part of the Questrom community that cultivated such freedom ofan open mind.

So, congratulations, class of 2017!Forwhen you walk outside that door today, you are already equipped with one ofthe most critical skills to succeed in the future, the ability to embracediversity. Thank you so much!