On March 28th, from 4:15-5: 30pm, the Xianmian Building Annex Auditorium was full of students from grades 7-11 and their parents. They were attending the first Xianmian Talk. The Xianmian Talk program is a new educational initiative. Each month, one scholar from a specific field is invited to give an academic talk. Some juniors and seniors will also be invited to share their growth stories at SHSID. Xianmian Talk is designed to help current SHSID students learn more about the latest academic developments in different fields as well as to get to know how the high school is cultivating well-rounded graduates through various educational programs. The students in lower grades will be able to understand how they can make appropriate choices for their own courses and extracurricular activities in high school.

The first Xianmian Talk was given by Mr. Xu Weizhong, chief strategy officer of Hauwei wireless network. Mr. Xu told the story of Huawei’s development in the past 30 years. He emphasized that innovation and hard work are the two key factors contributing to Huawei’s development into the current world leader of 5G technology. He also encouraged the young students to bravely take on new challenges and keep doing what they love. Many students and their parents found Mr. Xu’s talk very inspiring. Next, Li Ruojia, a current senior, shared a story about finding her academic interest in high school by trying many different things in grades 9-10 and narrowing down her choice in grade 11. She encouraged the young students to improve their time management, take part in valuable research programs or challenges, engage in more self-reflections, and make better academic plans and activity plans in terms of their own future development for the long run.

(Written/Pictures by Zhang Li)