This year’s graduation ceremony of NSYSU is different from the past. The graduation ceremony was held on June 1st, 2019. In the past, there were only Taiwanese students as the graduate student representatives at the speech. This year, there was a foreign face. He is Andrew Argue, a graduate student from Class 2016 in the Master of Business Administration Program in International Business (IBMBA) program. He took the initiative to win a seat for international students when competing for the graduate student representative at the commencement ceremony, beginning a new chapter for the graduation ceremony at NSYSU.
Andrew pointed out that he had seen international graduate student representatives at other schools and he believed that such a role could appropriately represent the feelings of an international student at the commencement ceremony, which would resonate with students from foreign countries. Therefore, after learning about the recruitment of graduate student representatives from the International Relationship Office of College of Management, he applied for this opportunity and got it.
Quoting Shakespeare’s famous words, “The world is your oyster”, Andrew encouraged everyone to push their abilities, to conquer their fears and achieve their goals in life, and to not forget to give back to the society that nurtures them at the same time. Throughout his speech, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of giving back to the community. During his studies, he participated in a project to plan corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities for an elderly care center, teaching children how to take care of and care for the elderly. He observed and learned how people could help others with their own strengths. Further, he also encouraged the students in the audience, in addition to improving their own abilities and working their jobs, to participate in more similar projects to help companies implement CSR, or work for social enterprises after graduation.
Moreover, Andrew said that there were numerous opportunities at NSYSU to meet students from different countries, which helped the students learned to appreciate and respect people from different cultures, treating everyone equally. ” For this variety is what makes our world a truly beautiful place.” , he said. He also shared the voices of many foreign students, saying that the experience of leaving the familiar hometown to study at NSYSU had been a memory that would never be forgotten, meeting different people had helped them see the world from different perspectives.
Andrew came to Taiwan about ten years ago. At that time, he had worked in Toronto for four years. He decided to come to NSYSU for the IBMBA program to study Chinese and learn new knowledge. Soon after he arrived, he fell in love with the learning environment and decided to continue his studies in the PhD program at the Institute of Business Management. At the same time, he was one of the only two Canadian students to receive the PhD scholarship from Ministry of Education.
Recently, his research paper would be published at the 2019 European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium. He mentioned that he had learned tremendously from his thesis advisor Thijs Velema and other advisors, and he was very grateful to them for making him a better scholar. He had also run a business of Mexican food truck with his girlfriend from 2014 to 2016. Although the entrepreneurial process had been tough, the experience gained had been immensely invaluable.
During his speech at the ceremony, he spoke with fluent Chinese and English. He ended his speech with a saying by Zhuangzi ”鵬程萬里，展翅高飛！” to wish all graduates to have a bright future.
