The ceremony kicked off in the solemn national anthem. President Zhu Chongshi first delivered a speech to extend warm welcome and sincere congratulations to the 2015 students, and expressed great respect and heartfelt thanks to their parents , teachers and friends.

Zhu Chongshi told students the story of how Tan Kah Kee endeavored to start a business and run schools as well as their embodied valuable qualities, and encouraged the students to follow the example of Tan Kah Kee ,the school master, to be as patriotic, sincere, persevere, pioneering and innovative as he was, and consciously assume the mission and responsibility of "working hard for the Chinese renaissance and innovation," be good at seizing opportunities, be brave in innovation, face difficulties, try to make their life in Xiamen University become the best memories in their life, and make the learning and researches in Xiamen University become the greatest achievements in their life.

Zhu Chongshi said, the reason that Tan Kah Kee became "the banner of overseas Chinese" was that first and foremost he was a most trustworthy leader in the mind of overseas Chinese, whose qualities of sincerity, integrity and keeping his promise inspired countless overseas Chinese. Sincere and integrity are the starting point and the cornerstone of behaving oneself and doing things, especially for those engaged in scientific research without allowing false and faked decoration. Graduate students, compared with undergraduate students, have more opportunities to participate in a variety of scientific research and innovation activities. Students must adhere to the "academic integrity", consciously resist the academic misconduct, prevent fraud, and let alone plagiarism behavior.

Zhu Chongshi indicated that youngsters were sensitive and quick-witted, and in this era of rapid innovation and change of human knowledge, whoever could seize the opportunity to ride on the momentum could be more successful. He hoped that the students could combine their academic interests with the needs of growth and success, closely seized the opportunity to work with supervisors, communicated with experts and scholars from around the world and fellow classmates and participated in large-scale events and high academic conferences, seized the opportunities and challenges of overcoming difficulties to temper themselves, improved themselves, and realized their dreams.

Zhu Chongshi pointed out that graduate students were an innovative fresh force, and graduate students should focus on “research” in their study. The so-called research, was to "explore their interests in the unknown world system", and this "exploration" was no longer a passive acceptance and absorptions, but a process of  positive, proactive, autonomous, self-conscious knowledge learning, perception of knowledge, exploration of knowledge, and knowledge innovation. He hoped that students could cultivate a habit of critical thinking, with the courage to surpass their supervisors, challenge authority and have the courage to explore, be brave and persistent to be the first to make an attempt, study hard, and cultivate their ability of doing well in finding out and solving problems.

Zhu Chongshi encouraged students to actively confront and overcome difficulties and problems in learning, research and life, and maintained a restless indomitable spirit in the face of any difficulties. Meanwhile, Zhu Chongshi also reminded students of not overusing and being addicted to the mobile phone, not taking "WeChat" or "microblog" as a way to gain knowledge.

Professor Fang Ying on behalf of supervisors of graduate students made a speech from the perspectives of four pairs of relationships, namely "ideal and utility", "selection and persistence", "short term and long term" and "profession and eruditeness", sharing with students his own experience and lesson gained from over 20 years of study and research. He said that God helps those who help themselves and those down-to-earth and diligent people would surely get paid off in our society in the final. Professor Fang Ying assumed, there were different focuses at every stage of life, life of a graduate student was supposed to be full of enthusiasm, set the world to rights, temper oneself in study and talk freely about his or her ideal. Three to four years in school was valuable but very short, and he suggested students that they be sure to thoroughly enjoy the beautiful campus, cultivate righteousness, and expand their own minds and patterns.

Wan Cunling, a 2014 graduate student from School of Public Affairs, on behalf of other students except 2015 students, used "doing research to acquire knowledge" , "cultivating our moral characters to pursue our noble goals" and "enhancing our ethics to serve the public" to share with students her experience of learning and life. She said that as a graduate student, we had to learn, and on the other hand, try to make further attempt at knowledge creation and explore the "unknown" on the basis of "known". This was a new task, but also a great challenge. We should not only study and think diligently but also cultivate our moral characters and minds, temper and inherit fine traditions of Xiamen University, and with optimistic attitude, rigorous scholarship and assiduous spirit, put ourselves into the future intense graduate study.

Zhang Pengcheng, a representative of 2015 graduate students, from Physics and Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, was full of expectations for life of a graduate student, and hoped all new graduate students could always adhere to the pursuit of truth, maintain enthusiasm for scientific research, with precise and sincere attitude, go practicing scientific truth step by step, be honest to treat each data, each report and every achievement so that their scientific achievements could withstand the test of time.

The opening ceremony came to an end accompanied by a piece of passionate school song.