On September 4^th, the Graduate Opening Ceremony was held at Optics Valley Stadium and the parallel venue, Tongji Medical College Stadium. More than 9600 graduate freshmen attended the ceremony.

President Yuanyuan Li delivered an opening speech. Li said that facing fierce competition in cutting-edge technology in a new era of scientific and technological revolution as well as industrial transformation, HUST graduate students should improve both academic competence and morality, and never cease to strive for excellence. He hopes that the graduates can enhance innovative ability and humanistic spirit at the same time, and always abide by academic norms when studying at HUST.

Jianguo Chen, Vice President of HUST and President of Tongji Medical College, delivered a speech named “Tongji’s Contributions to the Global Pandemic” at the parallel venue in Tongji Medical College. Chen said that at the height of the pandemic, Tongji Medical College made full use of its medical advantages and contributed greatly to the pandemic prevention and control. He hopes that the students can be compassionate, enterprising, grateful, and grow into the mainstays of human health.

Dong Liang, a graduate freshman from School of Education, shared her experience of working in remote western China. Liang called for students to be dedicated and diligent. Song Gao, a doctoral student from the School of Mechanical Science and Engineering, said that HUST graduate students need to shoulder the responsibility of fulfilling national strategies, scale new heights of scientific research and sharpen skills to do world leading academic research in line with the needs of national industries.

Professor representative Jintao Zhu, Dean of the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, emphasized in his speech that graduate students shall focus on science and technology innovation by strengthening the basic and interdisciplinary research.

The graduate freshmen from Tongji Medical Collage watched the documentary of the 110th anniversary of the founding of the college and swore the oath of medical students. They also attended an orientation session, which prepared them for pandemic prevention and control and upcoming college life.

Written by: Can Shi

Edited by: Shengyuan Ma, Tony, Yumeng Peng