中国大陆学子首登哈佛毕业礼演讲台

哈佛大学不仅是享誉世界的第一名校，也是美国历史最悠久的大学。

成立于1636年的哈佛大学在其建校380年、毕业典礼举办365届的历史上，从未有过中国大陆学生参与毕业演讲的记录。

 但是，昨天，也就是5月26日，这个记录终于被一个来自湖南农村的小伙子，何江，打破了。

何江，来自中国湖南省宁乡县坝塘镇停钟新村。

北京时间5月26日晚，何江穿上毕业礼服，走上哈佛大学毕业典礼的发言台，作为优秀研究生代表发言。这也是哈佛大学历史上第一个在毕业典礼上登台演讲的中国大陆学生。与他同台演讲的特邀嘉宾是著名导演史蒂芬·斯皮尔伯格。

这不是何江第一次获得一所大学毕业生的最高荣誉。何江曾经获得中国科学技术大学本科生最高荣誉奖——郭沫若奖学金，并作为获奖代表发言。

何江与哈佛这场演讲的缘分，说起来有些偶然。去年底的一天，在本科生宿舍兼任辅导员的他照例和一群人在食堂吃饭，大家聊起学校选拔毕业典礼演讲人这件事。负责宿舍工作的教授戴安娜·埃克建议何江去试试，他有些犹豫。“你觉得自己行，就去试，没什么丢脸的。”埃克教授说。

如果不争取，机会永远不会来。与其等待，不如一试，何江决定试试。

3月初，何江参加了学校的演讲工作坊，从学写演讲稿开始。他每改完一稿，都发给埃克教授和其他朋友读。在不断地修修改改和建议声中，何江逐渐完善了演讲稿。首轮选拔由参赛者提交讲稿和个人材料，3月底截稿，再由10名不同专业的教授从中筛选。

递交材料后，很长时间都没动静，何江以为自己可能没戏了。当他很意外地收到入选通知时，距离初赛只有6天了。

4月19日初赛启动，从上百名参赛者中选出的10多人上台比拼演讲。何江紧张极了，他尝试脱稿讲，感觉七八分钟一下子就过去了，下台后连自己说过什么都忘了，很忐忑地回去了。两小时后，正吃饭的何江收到评委的邮件，他再次过关。刹那间，他意识到机会难得，应该全力一搏。

距复赛只有一周了，何江给一些见过但并不熟识的教授发邮件求助，希望得到指点。这些教授都回信并与他见了面。一位教授还介绍了自己的朋友、肯尼迪学院一位公共演讲培训专家帮助何江。同学、朋友们也以各种方式支持何江。

到4月26日复赛时，只剩4名选手了。有两名来自肯尼迪学院，都很擅长公开演讲，其中一名还有多年的外交经验；一名教育学院的选手当过多年导游，演讲颇有感染力。何江经历过的最大的演讲场面，是他获得中国科技大学本科生最高荣誉——郭沫若奖时的演讲，当时台下听众仅有数百名。

“说实话，我都不清楚为什么当选了。”读博期间，从事超高分辨显微成像研究流感入侵人体过程及大脑神经元细微结构的何江，作为第一作者和共同作者，已发表9篇论文，从论文数量和质量看，他都是名副其实的“学霸”。但何江说，哈佛学业出色的人太多了，他的胜出，可能与演讲内容的新颖度有关，选择科技题材的演讲人相对较少。

“哈佛的教育教会我们学生敢于拥有自己的梦想，勇于立志改变世界……我成长的经历教会了我作为一名科学家，积极地将我们掌握的知识传递给那些有急切需要的人是多么的重要……而这样一件事，是我们每个毕业生力所能及可以做到的。”讲到这里，何江的演讲被掌声打断。整个演讲，他充满激情，透着自信。

 从不自信到自信，28岁的何江经历了太多的历练。从乡下到县城读高中，蹩脚的“农村英语”让他不自信，他就买来英文版小说硬啃；到了哈佛，校园满是“牛人”，整个头一年他都不自信，但第二年，他就报名当本科生辅导员，最后一年，他搬入本科生宿舍，与一群本科生同吃同住。

这期间，何江做过许多被他称作“破冰”的尝试。比如，一桌西方学生正吃饭热聊，英语还不那么“顺溜儿”的何江也坐过去加入谈话。受挫是经常的，但他硬着头皮不断尝试。渐渐地，他结交了不少朋友，不仅持续获得知识上的滋养，英文也越来越好。

何江告诉记者，他此番迎接挑战哈佛毕业演讲的动力还有一个，希望中国学生都能自信大胆地在各种讲台上发出自己的声音，因为每个学生都是自己校园的主人翁。

何江做到了，哈佛校园回荡的掌声为证。

完成哈佛学业后，何江将赴麻省理工学院进行博士后研究，继续迎接自己人生和科学研究新的挑战。

看完这个湖南小伙全程自信微笑的脸庞，总觉得很眼熟。我忽然间想起一个人来，你们自己感受下！

附何江哈佛毕业演讲英文稿全文：

When I was in middle school, a poisonous spider bit my right hand. I ran to my mom for help, but instead of taking to a doctor, my Mom set my hand on fire. After rubbing my hand with several mares of cotton then soaked in wine,she put a chopstick into my mouth and ignited the cotton。

Heat quickly penetrated  the cotton and began to roast my hand. The searing pain made me want to scream but the chopstick prevented it. All I could do was watch my hand bone, one minute, then two minutes, until my mom put off the fire。

You see the Public China I grew up in was a rural village, and at that time, pre industrial. When I was born, my village had no cars, no telephones, no electricity, not even running water and we certainly didn’t had access to the modern medical resources。

There was no doctor my mother could bring me to see about this spider bite. For those who study Biology, you may have brought the science behind my mom’s cure: heat deactivates proteins and the spider venom is full of protein. It’s cool how could this folk remedy incorporate with the base of  biochemistry, isn’t it?

But I am a Ph.D student in Biochemistry study at Harvard, I now know a better, less painful and less risky treatment existed. So, I can’t help but ask myself, why I did’t receive one at that time?

Fifteen years have passed since that incident, I am happy to report that my hand is fine. But this question lingers and I continued to be troubled by the unequal distribution of scientific knowledge throughout the world。

We have learn to edit the human geneal and uncover many secrets of how cancer progressing. We can manipulate neuron activity literally with the switch of light. Each year with more advances in Biomedical research, exciting transformative accomplishment。

Yet despite the knowledge we had on that, we haven’t be so successful deploying it to where need it most. According to the World Bank, 12% of world population lives on less than 2 dollars a day。

Malnutrition kills more than 3 millions children annually. Three hundred million people are afflicted by Malaria globally. All over the world, we constantly see the problem of poverty, illness and lack of resources impeding the flow scientific information。

Life-saving knowledge took for granted in our modern world is over-unavailable in the underdeveloped regions. And so, in far to many places, people are still essentially trying to cure a spider bite with fire。

While studying at Harvard, I saw how scientific knowledge can help others in simple, in profound ways. The burst through pandemic in 2000 took my village like a spell cast by demons。

Our folk medicine didn’t even have half-mattress offer. What’s more, farmers did not know the difference between the common cold and flu. They did not understand that the flu is much more lethal than common cold. Most of all are also unaware that the virus are transmitted  by animal species。

So when I realize that simple hygiene practices like separate different animal species could help contain this kind of disease and that I could help this kind of knowledge available to my village。

That was my first "aha" moment as a bioscientist. But it was more than that: it was also a vital inflection point of my own ethical development, my own self-understanding as a member of global community。

Harvard dares us to dream big, to aspire, to change the world. Here on this Commencement Day, we are appropriate the thinking of grand destination that wait us 。

As for me, I am also thinking of the farmers in my village. My experience here reminds me how important it is for researchers to communicate our knowledges, to those who need it. Because by using the science we already have, we can proper my village and thousands like it into the world you and I take for granted every day and that’s an impact every one of us can made。

But the question is, will we make the effort , or not?

More than ever before, our society emphasized our science and innovation, but an equally important emphasis should on distributing the knowledge we had to those who needed。

Changing the world doesn’t mean that everyone should find the next big thing. It can be a simplest to become a better communicator and find more creative ways to pass on the knowledge we had, to people like my mom and farmers in the local communities。

Our society also need to recognize that the equal distribution of knowledge is a pivotal step to the human development and we will work to bring this into a reality。

And if we do that, then perhaps a teenager in rural China with a beat by a poisonous spider will no longer burn his hand but will know to see a doctor instead。

Thank you !