On September 7th, 83 new students from the Master of Finance (MF) Program in 2020 at Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance (SAIF) ushered in a new starting point of importance. The one-week opening ceremony combined offline events with online live broadcasts, during which a variety of exciting and meaningful activities led the students from all over the world to SAIF Campus and 8 international students who participated in the whole process online to reveal the first chapter of campus life at SAIF.
We sincerely wish all new students of SAIF MF2020 will enjoy a passionate and fantastic journey of study at SAIF. May everyone run with their dreams and live up to their youth.
A wonderful and rewarding gathering of freshmen
SAIF MF2020 is composed of 73 domestic students from top universities in China and 10 outstanding international students.
Eight of the new international students are currently in the United States, Australia, France and other countries. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, it was a pity that they cannot come to SAIF to attend this year's opening ceremony. However, overcoming the time difference, they followed the whole process, connected to and interacted with the present participants, and experienced this wonderful opening ceremony online along with their SAIF MF2020 peers.
A new journey unveiled by world-class guests
At the opening ceremony, Prof. Chun Chang, Executive Dean, Professor of Finance and Huifu Chair Professor at SAIF, sincerely welcomed all new SAIF MF students on behalf of SAIF and conveyed a profound speech. Prof. Chang proposed three "balances" that the students need to grasp in their study and life at SAIF over the next two years:
The first is the balance between tradition and innovation. He hoped that the students will be fully prepared for the technological innovations of the traditional financial sector.
The second is the balance between practice and theory. He encouraged everyone to strive for real-world practical opportunities in the industry, while ensuring the two years at SAIF would lay a solid theoretical foundation for long-term career development in the next decades.
And the third is to the balance between study, work and life. It is important to hit the balance between work and life at your own pace and maintain curiosity and exploration of the world while pursuing career success. It will be a challenge throughout our lives. subject of everyone's life.
Mr. Ming Lei, Secretary of CPC Committee, President and Executive Director of CCB FinaTech Co., Ltd., gave the students a special keynote speech titled "The South Face – Exploring the future of Fintech".
Starting from the origin of FinTech, Mr. Lei explained that FinTech is the reconstruction of the financial system from the top-level design through technologies. He also introduced a number of key technologies with great application prospects, including blockchain, quantum computing, edge computing and cloud infrastructure.
Next, based on his own experience, Mr. Lei illustrated how technology has changed the financial sector with real-world cases. From how AI disrupted the traditional check verification of banks, to how FinTech platforms facilitated the financial supports to SMEs during the epidemic, he vividly revealed the fact that FinTech is extremely promising. But meanwhile, Mr. Lei also reminded every participant that finance and technology accelerate each other, and it is critical to be alert to the risks and potential social concerns they may bring.
Although offshore, Prof. Tan Wang, Professor of Finance and MF Program Academic Director at SAIF, warmly welcomed the freshmen of SAIF MF2020 through real-time video conferencing and shared his insights.
Prof. Wang looked back at his own feelings of enrollment and wished SAIF MF freshmen would stay enthusiasm and success in the new journey of study. He hoped that they could set up ambitious academic and career goals and learn from their role models to become future leaders of the financial world. Furthermore, he also advised the students to use solid knowledge and critical thinking to solve real-life problems.
Next, Prof. Wang led the students to review the two-year study plan at SAIF MF and briefed the core courses, modules, activities and thesis requirements. In the end, he sent a message to the students to "stay hungry and stay foolish", hoping that everyone would remain active and open-minded in the future study and career life.
Ms. Lin Yang, Head of SAIF MF Program, presided over the opening ceremony and gave a speech to welcome the new SAIF MF students. Ms. Yang led the students to perceive how full and meaningful a typical day at SAIF MF is. She hoped that the students would prevent themselves from drifting along and actively and fully prepare for this challenging postgraduate program. Ms. Yang encouraged these young students to cherish their precious youth and campus years, constantly experiment various interesting things and explore unlimited possibilities.
The spark is passed down: New and existing MF students and alumni shared and exchanged their ideas
Shenghui Yu from SAIF MF-General 2020, who graduated from Fudan University with a bachelor's degree in Finance, and Ruihan Qiu, SAIF MF-FinTech 2020, who graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University, spoke on behalf of all the freshmen. Shenghui shared his sense of mission as a finance student in the new era and expressed his vision for the next two years at SAIF. On contrary, Ruihan talked about his mental shift from mathematics to finance.
The sharing session was hosted by Ms. Yang Lin, who asked questions and invited four outstanding seniors, namely Zhihan Xia and Yingke Jiang from SAIF MF-General 2019, as well as Chirui Zhang and Jian Wu from SAIF MF-FinTech 2019, to share their experience and communicate with the freshmen.
Zhihan Xia, who just finished his internship at the Investment Banking Division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch this summer, exchanged ideas and experience in preparing and applying for international banks. Yingke Jiang, who is now an intern at Bain, elaborated how she set world-class consulting firms as her career development direction with the help of SAIF faculty and staff.
Chirui Zhang recently completed his internship at Morgan Stanley in the summer. With an undergraduate degree in science and engineering, he shared with us how he broke through with the training at SAIF MF and strengthened his soft skills, including presentation and networking, while also studying hard skills. Soft power. Having engaged in an internship in a quantitative position at the Dynamic Technology Lab, a hedge fund in Singapore, Jian Wu shared his experience in how to successfully transform into a cross-disciplinary FinTech talent in one strike.
An all-round overview of curriculum, career development and campus services
In order to help students better adapt to the upcoming new life at SAIF, the staff from various departments gave an in-depth overview to SAIF MF's curriculum design and comprehensive services. Lei Li, Coordinator of SAIF MF2020, first introduced the curriculum and academic requirements.
The educational administration team reviewed the educational administration system and the requirements of course selection.
Ms. Kathleen Zhang, Head of SAIF Career Development Center (CDC), explained the supports and services that CDC will provide to students in their future job search.
In order to ensure that each student's individual concerns would be responded, a Networking Booth was specially designed to provide ample opportunities for the new students to communicate with the staff from various teams and outstanding seniors.
First experience of a wonderful course and mental collision at SAIF
Prof. Jie Hu, Professor of Practice at SAIF and former CEO of Financial Division at Xunlei Group, brought an impressive first class to the students, titled “A New Face of the Old Financial Kingdom”. Prof. Hu guided the students to review the past, present and future of the financial world, inspiring their industry-oriented macro perspective and deepening their understanding of the industry.
Mr. Zhang, who had worked at JP Morgan in London for years and has extensive professional experience, brought a wonderful practical courses to the students, giving them a glance at the financial workplace and training their networking skills.
Passionate team building activities
The joyful activities of quality development and talent show further narrowed the distance between the students. Under the guidance of the coach, the students competed fitness balls in groups, which tested their physical strength, intelligence and teamwork.
In addition, they also showed their talents on the stage. The newly formed teams presented fantastic ideas with brainstorming and tacit cooperation, showing the versatile, cheerful and lively style of SAIF students.
Standing at the starting point of a meaningful new journey, the students wrote down the small objectives for the next two years and their wishes for the future. The program team sealed these "time capsules" one by one, so that the students would open them in person when they graduate two years later.
