打破259年历史！郑州小伙傅楷量，成为第一位登上布朗大学毕业演讲台的中国留学生！（附视频&演讲稿）
每年 5 月，美国大学毕业典礼都会受到大家的广泛关注，很多学校会邀请最能代表学校精神和价值观的知名人士、校友和学生来做演讲，参加毕业典礼的学生家长也都不是泛泛之辈。
前两天，位于美国罗得岛州的藤校布朗大学也迎来了2023年度毕业典礼。在毕业生代表演讲环节，一张中国面孔的赫然出现，吸引了现场 2000 多名师生的目光。
他叫傅楷量，来自河南郑州，是布朗大学 2023 届优秀毕业生代表，同时也是布朗大学建校 259 年来，第一位登上毕业演讲台的中国本科留学生。
傅楷量的演讲主题是 "Fault Tolerance"《学会容错》。在他看来，越是顶尖学校的优等生，对于一帆风顺的人生越是执着，他们难以、甚至是无法容忍挫折与失败。
但与其因惧怕犯错绊住前进的脚步，不如允许人生轨道的偶尔偏航。演讲台上的傅楷量闪闪发光，赢得阵阵掌声。
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I can still clearly remember the moment I received Brown's offer letter. After refreshing my email for, what must have been, the 92nd time, I opened the unread message with trembling fingers.
To my relief and excitement, it was an offer of admission.
My mom, sitting right over there today, rushed to my room, her ears covered, because I had just screamed too loud.
Where did that scream come from? Deep in my heart, it was a release of my fear of failure.
For years, this fear gripped my mind and kept telling me that if I didn’t try hard and succeed in every exam and competition, I would "lose at the starting line " in this race of life. Even worse, it would cause emotional damage.
But the culture I experienced here at Brown was vastly different. Brown empowers us to embrace failures on our journeys of exploration. We can fail our CS 15 assignments knowing there are fallback plans. We could go to TA hours more frequently or change the grading option to S NC, hopefully before the deadline. We can mess up our introductory speeches in Professor Barbara Tannabaem's class and redo them at the end of the semester.
We can fail on external jobs or research applications knowing there are still plenty of excellent openings on campus right here. By reducing the cost of trials and errors, Brown alleviates our fear of failure. It encourages us to take risks in the pursuit of something rewarding. This is how we dare to take tough courses, to speak publicly, and to interview without fear.
In my Junior year, I applied for a position at Google. I passed the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth interview. I was feeling pretty good when HR called me, but no. I failed my last, sixth interview on system design. Heart break.
To learn how to build more reliable computer systems, due to the emotional damage, I decided to take CS3080 Distributed Systems To my surprise, Professor Benson named his first day of class "Failures". He introduced the most essential concept in distributed systems: Fault Tolerance. By definition, Fault Tolerance refers to a system's ability to continue operating without interruption even if one or more of its components fail.
Brown has made all of us more fault-tolerant. Even if one endeavor fails, we, as a system, can keep operating and improving. Because of that, we grew faster than ever in our years at Brown I remember trying 4 different research labs and getting increasingly frustrated before finding a project that perfectly combines my CS and history interests.
Which is to use machine learning to analyze historical Asian drawings. Each step of failure has led me toward a project I’m truly passionate about. At Brown, we are motivated no longer by the fear of failure but rather by the enthusiasm to try something new. Even when we know we might not succeed . Outside of Brown's bubble, it can be hard to accept failures. After all, a mistake can mean losing a bonus, a promotion, or even a job.
After today, It might feel that Brown is not with us anymore.
But it will be always, as a mindset.
A mindset that is open to failure and accepts it as part of the journey. A mindset that tolerates others' mistakes and gives them a 2nd chance. A lot of what we perceive as failures won't be on the transcript of our or other’s life ten years from now.
Let's make the society more fault tolerant by not grading failures as Fs. or NCs And the good thing is, there is even no deadline to change the grading option of our life. After four years of studying at Brown, I finally have a, let’s say, more genuine, answer to the supplemental essay that each one of us including the parents, pondered over, why the open curriculum? Because it allows us, as Brown students, to be open to failure, thus opening more possibilities in life.
My fellow graduates, now we are going to depart from Brown and enter another stage of life.
Instead of treating life as a race, let’s carry on the mindset we started here and continue to explore, experiment, and take risks.
Let’s make the society more tolerant, Most importantly, remember that Brown will always be with us, as a community and as a mindset.
Congratulations, class of 2023, we made it!
傅楷量来自国内高考大省——河南，从小在中国体制内的教育下成长，门门功课优秀，成绩一直保持在年级前五。
初中时，他曾尝试申请美高，但当时以失败告终。甚至在第一次准备托福考试的时候，在校内英语成绩一向排在前三的他，却在托福第一次考试中拿到了令他难以置信的低分—— 47 分。
留学首战，没能告捷。随即而来的申请季，也进行的不太顺利，傅楷量申请的 12 所高中，其中 11 所向他发出了拒信，只有 1 所手下留情，将他放进了 Waitlist。
但是这些挫折并没有让傅楷量气馁，在申请季暂时宣告 " 失败 " 后，他又火速加入到备战中考的队伍之中，顺利考上了郑州外国语中学的国际部，重新开始向留学发起进攻。
三年的高中时光，傅楷量持续积蓄力量，为出国读书做准备。2018 年底，他决定把仅有一次的 ED 机会用于冲刺藤校，申请美国的布朗大学。
最终他以托福 110+，SAT1500+，10 门 AP 满分的彪悍成绩上岸布朗，给自己的辛苦付出一个满意的回报。
When it came time to choose a college or university, Kailiang Fu knew he wanted an educational experience that prioritized intellectual independence, creative thinking and exploration. When Fu learned about Brown’s Open Curriculum, he quickly realized he’d found his home. Reflecting on that decision four years later, Fu is confident he made the right decision, and he will share that message on Commencement day.
“I want my fellow graduates to keep the mindset we’ve gained here at Brown of not being controlled by the fear of failure,” Fu said. “I want us to keep exploring and risk-taking.”
Originally from Zhengzhou, the capital of China’s Henan Province, Fu said he plans to channel his experiences at Brown into an address that epitomizes a computer science term called “fault tolerance,” which refers to a system’s ability to bounce back, despite setbacks or failure.
“I think that's our most important lesson,” Fu said of the resiliency he’s learned. “Brown has made us all more ‘fault tolerant.’ We’ve been encouraged to chart our own journeys and explore different, new topics. And even if we’ve messed up and failed, we’ve gained experience for the next time we try something that pushes us to our limits.”
The lessons in Fu’s speech are grounded in his time at Brown. During his four years, Fu said he looked continually for opportunities to expand his skills in computer science and satisfy his passion for history, whether it was through courses, student organizations or internships.
Since January 2023, Fu has worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant in Brown computer science courses such as Distributed Computer Systems. He’s also served as a mentor for IgniteCS, a student organization that travels to local K-12 schools to help students learn coding and other computer science skills. And as a team member of Dream!n, a user-generated gaming startup that won second place in last year’s Brown Venture Prize, Fu has learned the ins and outs of running a small technology company.
Fu remembers two classroom experiences with special fondness. One was Archaeology of College Hill, which had him digging into the foundations of a Gilded Age family’s home on Hope Street in Providence and finding painted mosaic tiles, tiny glass bottles and rusty nails. The course gave him an increased appreciation for history’s many complexities and individual stories.
“We talk about primary sources all the time in history courses, but we don’t always get a full picture of the process it takes to get these firsthand,” Fu said. “In this course, we did, and we then got to analyze them. To borrow a term from computer science, we got the full stack experience of history.”
The other course was Persuasive Communication, taught by Distinguished Senior Lecturer in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies Barbara Tannenbaum. As an international student whose second language is English, Fu said the course — even when he struggled with it — taught him to think more deeply about how he communicates in English, helping him improve on difficult but easily overlooked skills such as pronunciation. He said the experience paid dividends when it came to interviews for internships and jobs.
Brown has made us all more ‘fault tolerant.’ We’ve been encouraged to chart our own journeys and explore different, new topics. And even if we’ve messed up and failed, we’ve gained experience for the next time we try something that pushes us to our limits.
Tannenbaum’s course also helped solidify Fu’s belief that Brown faculty members care not only about his academic future, but also about his personal goals.
“No matter what you do or try out education-wise, Brown’s got your back,” he said.
Fu said one of the most critical skills he learned in the applied math-computer science concentration was how to collaborate with others in group projects. Those projects taught him how to take big problems and break them down into manageable pieces, whether the focus was on coding, interface design, machine learning or the security of computer systems. Fu used all of those skills and more in summer internships at Amazon and Meta his sophomore and junior years, respectively. After graduation, he will apply what he learned when he starts a job at Uber.
“This process of breaking down big problems into small, doable components was really fruitful for me,” Fu said. “I would love to carry this way of thinking into my education, career and beyond.”
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