fudan president jin li: without creative experience, even "special forces tourism" is just "checking in life"
2024-08-31
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the opening ceremony. photo by the paper reporter ju wentao
on august 30, fudan university held the opening ceremony for the 2024 freshmen. 4,337 new undergraduate students and 12,321 new graduate students from 92 countries and regions joined fudan university. at the ceremony, jin li, president of fudan university and academician of the chinese academy of sciences, sent a message to the 2024 freshmen.
"innovation and development are the pulse of the new era, and also the theme and mission of fudan university." jin li pointed out that the key to innovation lies in continuous efforts to innovate. no matter how high-quality the productivity is, it will definitely fall behind if it is not developed; no matter how popular the major is, it will always be eliminated if it is not updated. from the construction of a national innovation system to every discipline, every teacher and student, we must have the ability and motivation to innovate continuously.
the most fundamental task of an innovative university is to independently cultivate innovators with lifelong innovation capabilities. students should not only learn to innovate, but also learn to innovate continuously. coming to fudan to study is not to prepare for the first job after graduation, but to lay a solid foundation for the last step in life. if the goal of everyone's study is only to accumulate gpa, publish papers, get a degree, and find a job, then these few years are just an ordinary journey in life, just like a passer-by at fudan university station on metro line 18. a journey without creative goals and experiences is just a "punch-in life" even if every day is like a "special forces tour."
how to learn continuous innovation? jinli puts forward three expectations for freshmen.
jin li, president of fudan university, speaks. photo by fudan university
first, stimulate creativity. creativity is an innate quality of human beings.
brain scientist david eagleman pointed out that the brain has a phenomenon called "repetition inhibition" effect: when you get used to something, your reaction to it will become weaker and weaker, and the allocated neural energy will become less and less, making it more difficult to be creative. the brain is always looking for new things, and having something to learn will make the brain excited. a predictable world can save neural energy, but only new things can satisfy the brain. therefore, interest is the source of innovation, and everyone has the urge to learn, take risks and create. at the same time, humans not only have a huge advantage in the number of neurons, but also the unique body organization allows us to have a large number of "ready-to-use" neurons, which can form new neural circuits through learning and thinking. therefore, the more you use your brain, the better it is, and not using your brain well is a huge waste. students who can enter fudan have already proved their talents. after entering fudan, you must not let down your talents and youth at the stage of life when you can learn and create the most.
alumni ni minjing, director of the shanghai science and technology museum, divides the driving force of innovation into three levels: the first level, interest is the brain's reward for exploring the unknown, which makes us feel happy by secreting dopamine and generating alpha waves; the second level, if the interest fades, but we can still continue to study, it will rise to interest; the highest level is to be interesting, and become a person with abundant creativity. people often say "study in fudan" and "play in fudan", which is integrated into "create in fudan", learn excellently and play famously, and many outstanding and interesting fudan people have emerged from such a culture. i hope everyone will internalize innovation and creation into a lifestyle, do excellent things, and be an interesting soul.
second, train innovation ability. to stimulate potential talent into sustained creativity, hard ability training is indispensable.
in recent years, the school has carried out a lot of educational and teaching reforms with the core of cultivating innovative ability, aiming to cultivate more "stem cell-type" top innovative talents. fudan students should have multifaceted potential and high-quality potential like stem cells, ignite the ambition to create a future for the country and mankind, actively shape and update their own knowledge structure, and thus better discover new knowledge and solve new problems.
for example, embrace the scientific and intelligent innovation paradigm. in the new school year, the school will provide 116 ai-best sequence courses for all students, covering all first-level disciplines, of which 61 courses will be offered this semester, and 102 courses will be offered with parallel classes; the school will also open a large number of "x+ai" dual bachelor's degrees, doctoral and master's dual degree programs, as well as second degrees, minor degrees and ai+ programs to the 2024 students. in addition, the "cultural calendar" also collects and organizes many opportunities for scientific and technological participation, waiting for everyone to discover. we hope that today ai will empower everyone's growth and development, and tomorrow ai will innovate thousands of industries and benefit thousands of households, helping every young person and even the entire society win the future.
on the morning of august 30, the opening ceremony for the class of 2024 of fudan university was held on the lawn in front of guanghua building. photo by ju wentao, a reporter from the paper
another example is learning to "leave space" for yourself. professor bao gangsheng of the school of international affairs once wrote in an essay that teachers do not need to overestimate themselves. giving students some time to relax is the best help for them. he suggested that students should not live in a work-point incentive system too early. in many cases, they need to do subtraction rather than addition. university study is far more than gpa and ranking. the core orientation of the undergraduate gpa reform implemented last semester was to relax and increase the space for trial and error. a complete innovative exploration, even if the result fails, is more meaningful than an a.
these reform measures provide everyone with more rights to independently choose their development paths and construct their own knowledge structures. the key is to use them well and truly empower themselves.
third, hone entrepreneurial spirit. continuous innovation requires endogenous motivation, and innovators need entrepreneurial spirit.
what is entrepreneurship? in a narrow sense, it refers to starting a business. the more general and profound meaning is to create a career and open up a new world. alumni ruan weixiang just said that "innovation with a sense of mission" is a typical example of entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship must be hard, but being willing to endure hardships does not necessarily mean that you can start a business. everyone has worked hard since childhood and entered fudan university. now they have to compete with the best peers in the world, and they need entrepreneurial spirit the most. when reflecting on the exam-oriented education, professor shi yigong said that the inertial thinking of looking for standard answers and pursuing established goals is deeply rooted in the bones and cells, which makes people lack sufficient adventurous spirit and constrains the most precious original spirit; if he were to do it again, he would choose a more pioneering and challenging frontier research direction earlier. and now you have the right to choose.
what is entrepreneurial spirit? the most magnificent entrepreneurial spirit in human history is the chinese-style modernization led by the chinese communists and the great rejuvenation of the chinese nation. such great entrepreneurial spirit requires the ambition to change destiny and transform the world, the determination to be independent and self-reliant, the perseverance to stick to the original aspiration and never give up, and the compassion to benefit society and mankind. to dare to start a business and be able to start a business, one must know how to integrate personal struggle into the torrent of history, stand at the forefront of the times, link personal growth to national development, and use one's own progress to promote social progress.
devoting oneself to innovation is the best whetstone for growth. every innovative practice is an irreplaceable treasure. it allows you to taste the bitterness of failure and the sweetness of success, understand how to balance the fullness of ideals with the thinness of reality, learn to have cross-disciplinary and cross-border dialogues and communications, experience mutually beneficial and win-win teamwork, and constantly increase your life experience and quality.
hereby, we propose to the class of 2024 to jointly build a "creativity bank" for fudan students: deposit and access new ideas and experiences in your personal "creativity account" at any time, exchange ideas with your peers in the "innovation hall", record your failures in the "creativity cemetery", and engrave your successes on the "innovation heroes list". let this online community carry your students' innovation records and growth memories.
from today, students will begin to write their own fudan stories. zhao yong, a 1999 graduate of the department of electronic engineering, spent 10 years to make his company the first ai company listed on the a-share market in china. i would like to quote him to encourage everyone: "no matter what your ideal is, i hope you will always believe naively, love purely, and change the world 'beyond your ability'."
the paper reporter ju wentao
(this article is from the paper. for more original information, please download the "the paper" app)
