{"id":25593,"date":"2024-12-13T06:29:07","date_gmt":"2024-12-13T06:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eyeweb.in\/newmind\/?p=25593"},"modified":"2024-12-13T06:31:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T06:31:58","slug":"upp-spring-16-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/upp-spring-16-graduation\/","title":{"rendered":"UPP Spring 16 Graduation"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By DANIEL WANG, Intern<\/strong><\/p>

As the weather gets warmer and the flowers start to bloom, we know graduation season is approaching. We are very pleased to announce that the three recipients of IEP\u2019s Wolf Award were all UPP Students! This year, on May 6, 27 students graduated from the University Performance Program after an academic year of hard work and earning at least six UPP credits. Thirteen of these students also earned the perfect UPP Attendance certificate. Congratulations as well to our UPP Honors students Jessica Xiaorui Qu, Ling Mao, Wenting Zheng and Naomi Nan Sun for their exceptional efforts, resilience and motivation! Lastly, four students demonstrated incredible growth and performance in both academics, extracurricular activities, community service and cultural engagement. These students were awarded the New Mind Education\u2019s Songtao Scholarship of $1000 each! Congratulations Tom Tianming Liu, Jessica Xiaorui Qu, Ling Mao and Wenting Zheng!<\/p>

\u00a0To the students, this graduation was meaningful in many different ways. It reflected a year of building lasting friendships, surviving American culture shock, making breakthroughs with the language barrier and gaining valuable experiences that they will benefit from for a long time. Graduation may mark the end of their journey with UPP, but it is also a new beginning for their future education.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The ceremony took place at University Towers with a reception on the pool patio. Students gathered together and enjoyed taking pictures with each other, especially since so many dressed up in formal attire. \u201cIt was my first time dressing up like this, and I am so happy to see many others here at the graduation,\u201d Kai Deng said. \u201cIt will be a great memory for me.\u201d There was also a photo booth where students could take pictures with peers and advisors with funny props, such as giant classes and fake hair. Additionally, one advisor loaned their Polaroid camera for the event. \u201cWe all love the instant camera, it is a lot of fun,\u201d Amy Liu said.<\/p>

It was also a special day for Shuai Zhao because his brother was getting married in China on the day of graduation. Shuai had mixed feelings of grief and joy. \u201cI am so sad that I cannot be at my brother\u2019s wedding, but I am also very happy about what I have accomplished this past year,\u201d Zhao said. Shuai also invited Alyx, his UPP advisor, to join him in a short video and sent their blessings to his brother who is thousands of miles away. It was probably the sweetest moment that happened during the graduation reception.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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After the reception, the graduation ceremony began at 8:30 in UT\u2019s dining hall. Michael Chen, the founder of New Mind Education, was the keynote speaker for the graduation. He congratulated students for their efforts and told the students to be proud of themselves, regardless of whether they had passed IEP or not. All the UPP advisors also gave a speech about their groups and took pictures with their students. \u201cThe speeches are so touching and I am almost crying,\u201d Xinhua Du said. \u201cLe is a great advisor and she truly helped me a lot.\u201d Jessica Qu also commented on the advisors\u2019 speeches, \u201cThey have not only summarized everything in the past year but also encouraged us to look to the future.\u201d<\/p>

There were many rewards and certificates given out during the ceremony, such as graduation certificates, perfect attendance certificates, honors medals and scholarship awards. \u201cIt is a great feeling to be recognized with so many rewards,\u201d Lingchao Mao said.<\/p>

\u201cI cannot believe that I won this scholarship, I am so excited and I need to tell my parents,\u201d Tianming Liu said after he won one of the Songtao Scholarships.<\/p>

Many students had very positive comments on the food provided during the graduation. \u201cThe cake was so great! It was not so sweet like other American cakes I had before, this cake tastes like the ones we have back in China,\u201d Qu said. \u201cIt is simply amazing.\u201d<\/p>

Every student, regardless of whether they earned enough credits to graduate, received a photo album from all the student life events as well as a personalized card from their advisor.<\/p>

\u201cThe photos were my favorite gift I got from graduation. The photo album is filled with\u00a0 memories and I am glad to see myself in it,\u201d Rick Zhou said.<\/p>

Theresa Liao had a great suggestion for this event. \u201cThe slide show during the graduation could become a more significant part.\u00a0 It would be great if we, as students, could also add pictures to the slides before we graduate.\u201d<\/p>

Constantine Zong may have had the best comment about the graduation ceremony. \u201cToday is perfect, not because of my outfits, but simply because I am graduating and I cannot wait to get into college!\u201d<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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By DANIEL WANG, Intern As the weather gets warmer and the flowers start to bloom, we know graduation season is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-student-voices"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25602,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25593\/revisions\/25602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmind.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}