Qiu Yong, the President of Tsinghua University delivered a speech in the Opening Ceremony on Aug, 20. (Jinghua/Wang Haixin)

On Aug. 20, Qiu Yong, the President of Tsinghua University delivered a speech to 3, 300 freshmen on the topic of “Being a Motivated Idealist” in the Opening Ceremony of 2015, to encourage the freshman to be aspiring Tsinghua students. He said “a dream is like the engine of life, with it, you can have the wheels of progress”.

Qiu Yong mentioned that students of Tsinghua University must have a hard working style. He took an example of Mr. Liang Sicheng, who was an alumnus of Tsinghua University and used to walk around 15 provinces and over 200 counties, investigated over 2,000 ancient architectures in 12 years to complete the History of Chinese Architecture. During the time, he had overcome his spine injuries.

Qiu Yong also specially mentioned Han Chuyin, a freshman who came from a rural family. He walked a long way to go to school every day. During the nights of winter, when he felt too cold to sleep in the room without heating, he went to the playground to read books. In this year, he was selected into the “self-improvement plan” of Tsinghua University, and won the third place in the college entrance examination.

Qiu Yong, gave each freshman a set of The Ordinary World, to encourage the students to be brave to find the extraordinary value in this ordinary world.

Representatives of teachers reminded the students who obtained excellent scores in the college entrance examination that they might be encountered with setbacks after entering Tsinghua University. No matter what kind of difficulties they might encounter, it is hoped that they can settle down and stabilize each step in every task.