Greetings！ Friends， family， faculty and staff. Welcome to Boston University on such a beautiful Friday night.
問候！朋友，家人，教職員工。歡迎大家在這樣一個美麗的星期五晚上來到波士頓大學。
My name is Yujing Cai， and I am a graduate 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 sitting somewhere over there. They travelled， literally across half of the world to see their 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 the Questrom School of Business.
One of the things I always enjoyed doing while waiting for classes was looking at the different country flags in our atrium.Sometimes my friends and I even have silly competitions going on to see who knew more flags， and it often amazed me how many different cultures and nationalities are represented in our community.
In a community， so diverse， mutual understanding 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 the middle of the road. I even tried fortunes cookies for the first time in my life！ Soon， I felt so content with this progress and I gradually built a cozy nest with people of my culture， my age， and who thought and acted exactly like I did. Why bother talking to anyone else？ The coursework and job-hunting were already so tiring， and meeting people outside my circle just seemed so scary and unnecessary.
Then one day something changed. It was a normal school day， and I was in the atrium looking at the flags as always. I saw 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 of those nationalities. What a waste it was for me to ignore the diversity of experience and opinions that the Questrom community had to offer！ I was determined to change， but it wasn’t easy：
I experienced the awkwardness of having to explain a joke that no one understood， the nervousness of asking questions about other cultures that seemed so obvious and silly， and the anger of defending my beliefs only to get suspicion and aloofness in return. Fortunately， these discomforts weresoon taken over by things like the amusement of teaching my classmates to pronounce my last name， Cai， using a part of their tongue that they didn’t know existed， the excitement of promoting our Math Finance culture awareness events in the Questrom Graduate Council， the satisfactionof knowing all the secret authentic restaurants around Boston and the astonishment of seeing the world and myself in a way that I could never have imaged before.
During the past 2 years of graduate school and 4 years of undergraduate before that， I have been so proud to see that our school grew fromSchool of Management to Questrom School of Business， and that our community is growing stronger and more vibrant each year， and this couldn’t have happened without the effort of everyone here to share， to inspire， and to embrace each other.
Let’s now think about the future. 20 years from now， what kind of challenges are we going to face， as family members， as business owners， as human beings？ Nobody knows.To cope with that amount of uncertainty， we will need a diverse set of skills and knowledge， andmost important of all， an open mind to learn. That’s why we have been so lucky to be part of the Questrom community that cultivated such freedom of an open mind.
So， congratulations， class of 2017！ Forwhen you walk outside that door today， you are already equipped with one of the most critical skills to succeed in the future， the ability to embrace diversity. Thank you so much！
