By: Tim Hesler, GMBA Class of 2017

大家好.

Well, here we are. We knew this day was coming for us, but after talking with many of you in these past few days, I think I can also say that we didn’t fully comprehend just how quickly it was coming.

These last two years have been absolutely amazing. And for that, I want to say thank you. I don’t have any huge nuggets of wisdom to share – I’ll leave that to others today – but mostly, just, thank you.

For our guests – family members and friends – your faces may be unfamiliar to many of us, but you’re each here because in some significant way, you’ve played a role in shaping the life stories of the graduates sitting here, and I’m grateful for the support that has allowed our stories to meet in creating this two-year memory.

Professors Gao, Wang, Sun, and Hao, Eunice, Doris, Yidan, Rikki, Jessica, Abigail, Winnie, Amanda, Wei Rong, all the MBA Office and CDC staff, and all of our Tsinghua faculty as well as our MIT colleagues and partners: together, over many years, you have built the learning experience that our cohort has shared. I think I speak on behalf of our class when I say that we’re deeply appreciative of your dedication.

All of you have in some way contributed to our Global MBA journey, and we’re indebted to you for those contributions.

 Tim Hesler delivers his valedictorian speech

So then, how did we get here? Well, for starters, by virtue of a one-month-long orientation process that found us pulling each other over walls, conquering our fear of heights, discovering the hidden musical talents of our cohort, and diving in with real-world consulting work, followed by four very full semesters packed with courses, thesis writing, IPPing, exchange and dual degree programs, student leadership and organizations, countless opportunities to engage with thought leaders from across the world, plenty of cases, late nights, deep conversations … and more than a few KTV performances that I think we all just wish we could somehow erase from our memories.

We’ve seen romances blossom; many of us have attended our first Chinese wedding; and we’ve welcomed new babies and perhaps even future members of the SEM undergraduate Class of 2039. We’ve celebrated the birth of new ventures and in some cases – Julien and Juanqi – tasted the fruit of their labor.

We’ve reached for the bulk of the pyramid in Managerial Thinking; easily identified who has an engineering background in DMD; viciously betrayed each other while experimenting with collusion in Economics; discovered that accounting can be fun for the masses; been shocked by our classmates’ ruthless competitive streaks during TechMark; learned how to effectively wedding crash in Operations Management; fired employees and thoroughly enjoyed it in Managerial Communications; pondered the depths of the latecomer strategy in Strategic Management … and faithfully applied that latecomer strategy across attendance practices in many of our classes; collected real money from absolute strangers without really having any idea why in Organizational Behavior; learned that today is actually Kat’s birthday during the Stanford-Tsinghua Exchange Program; found out that United broke guitars before it started breaking passengers in Marketing; discovered that Zhao laoshi’s nickname was more than just a nickname in Corporate Finance; and had some of the hands-down most interesting conversations of the entire program during Ethics.

Of course, our collaboration with MIT was also evident from Day 1. How could we forget Neal Hartman and our very first case together? Shawn, I think just about everyone in the room was a little bit relieved when you took that first cold call for the team … and then maybe just a little bit intimidated when you completely nailed the case and we realized the bar had just been set awfully high for the next two years. Certainly, each of our MIT mini-courses as well as Entrepreneurial Strategy, the Sloan Module, and China Lab provided key highlights for many of us. Anna and Jing have been fortunate to experience Sloan at a much deeper level during their dual-degree pursuits and generous enough to share their insights with many of us. For me, there was also a reminder of the value of our MIT partnership during the Advisory Board visit of Sloan Dean David Schmittlein and his open conversation with many of us. Even in recent weeks, I’ve still periodically wrestled with one of the questions he raised: what would it look like to be more serious about building leadership traits – like courage, for instance – in students and employees rather than solely focusing on leadership skills?

I’m still rolling that question around in my mind, and as I remember some of the highlights of this whirlwind two years, one of the things I’ve loved about my time at Tsinghua is that it has allowed me so many opportunities to reflect on a range of critical life questions. I’ve had conversations here – with many of you – that I might never have had in America. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that we’ve had opportunities to engage across cultures over the types of questions that can change careers and lives, sometimes at an even deeper level than traditional MBA hard and soft skills.

This global community of 94, hailing from 18 different countries and regions, has served as a diverse international family. We’ve been at this for nearly 23 months now, wrestling with cases, trying to analyze and solve problems both small and large, bonding together over many late nights, and periodically shocking each other by revealing new layers and skills … or in my case, a complete lack of (dancing) skill, as I fully demonstrated on our orientation adventure. And back in those days not so long ago before MoBike and OFO had completely taken over the world, Yang Xi was kind enough to let me borrow his bicycle, only for me to promptly have it stolen. But when my classmates whole-heartedly embraced me anyway and responded graciously despite all my shortcomings and missteps, I knew I’d found the perfect home.

Some of us have been bumbling our way through language barriers since the time we arrived, and we’ve been especially dependent on the kindhearted gestures of Carina, Leon, Ben, Yutong, Wilson, and others in helping us set up WeChat wallet and navigate Didi Dache, JD.com, Taobao, and countless other sites and apps. Every time an announcement went out requiring us to use info.tsinghua.edu.cn, countless Chinese-speaking classmates were faithfully there for their international brothers and sisters.

Sean – Da Ge – and Putt, we always knew if an event was worth attending, one of you would be there working the scene, camera in hand. Eric, we learned a ton about accounting from you … and we also learned from you what happens when Professor White catches you with a phone in class. Thanks for being our guinea pig and saving the rest of us some pain. Allen, Howard, Keen, and others, you showed us that Yao Ming is not alone; Chinese ballers are coming for the rest of the world. Noted. Weilin, Luke, and Josh, you routinely reached out just to initiate inspiring conversations about things that matter. Stacey, you kept our Gateway communication to the outside world firing on all cylinders, even while yourself living half a world away. And finally, Dante – Wang Dada – your hospitality, sir, has been incredible and versatile, just like your hairstyles. You’ve consistently overseen all the detailed logistics, kicked us into action when necessary, worked with Xialong to keep our gang of 94 connected across oceans and borders, and always held an open invitation at Syllable, from the time we joined until now.

We call this day commencement. Not too long ago, on a late-night walk from SEM back to our dorms, Wang Peng pointed out to me that to commence means to start, to begin. And while this may mark the end of an incredibly special season we’ve shared together, it’s also the beginning of what I hope will be something even bigger: the Class of 2017’s post-MBA impact on the outside world.

So as I leave Tsinghua’s campus again five days from now, still wondering how two years could possibly have passed by so quickly, I’m also well aware that I’ll be taking so much more with me than I came here with. It’s been one of the great privileges of my life to have shared this season with so many of you, and I’m encouraged by the confidence that as we part ways and disperse to many corners of the globe, we still do even that together. In this sense, I see the coming days not only as a beginning, but also as a continuation – a bridge that we all cross as one. And for that, again, Tsinghua-MIT Global MBA Class of 2017, thank you.