Graduates and professors of Duke Kunshan University take a group photo during an online graduation ceremony. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the heads of academic institutions and industry leaders have been touting the same message during commencement ceremonies this year－students need to think about how they can make a difference in a world affected by the viral outbreak and not be overly anxious about their future.

On May 29, Alibaba Group founder and keynote speaker Jack Ma delivered this message at the online commencement ceremony for New York University Shanghai, saying that while many students might feel unlucky to be graduating under such circumstances, worrying about their careers and future is pointless.

Ma also recounts the story of how an NYU Shanghai student in the Czech Republic had sent face masks to a classmate in Wuhan, Hubei province, during the early stages of the crisis, and how this Wuhan student later reciprocated the kindness by sending disease prevention and medical treatment information from Chinese doctors to the Czech student following the outbreak in Europe.

Ma adds that these displays show that graduates already have the capacity to make a difference in the world.

Noting that the world has changed drastically since the university's class of 2020, which consists of 230 students from 24 countries and regions, arrived in Shanghai in 2016, vice-chancellor Jeff Lehman exhorts graduates to be the solution to the world's problems.

"Please be the people that we have come to know and love; people who create and innovate in respectful, productive partnership with others who grew up in different cultures and different nations," he says.

Attending the online ceremony from her home in the United States, NYU Shanghai student Isabel Adler shares memories of her time at the school and says that she has become a stronger individual after meeting her talented and driven peers.

"We're the class that persevered through the most unknown of times and entered a world that was a state of kind of chaos," Adler says.

"But just like how we've overcome the challenges of the last four years, we will overcome this, too. We're ready for the world, and the world is ready for us. Now more than ever, the world needs young people to be the light in the darkness."

At the online graduation ceremony for Duke Kunshan University, a Sino-US venture between Duke University and Wuhan University in Jiangsu province's Kunshan city, executive vice-chancellor Denis Simon urges graduates not to be discouraged by short-term hurdles to their intended job goals.

"The youths may feel a little frustrated with the constraints to their immediate opportunities, but I'd urge them to keep the faith because as we seek to learn from the COVID-19 experience, those with a global orientation will be in the best position to seize the high ground and shape the future," Simon said during the ceremony in May.