Professors, students, family and friends, welcome. I know that there are some of my classmates and teachers here today who already know me, but for those of you who don’t, my name is Lauren Gest. I came to PKU last September soon after having completed my undergraduate law degree in England to study the masters’ programme in Chinese law here before I need to return home to start my professional career. My aim was to be able to specialise in another legal system, and simultaneously being able to immerse myself in another culture was an added bonus.

So today, I have been asked to represent my LLM course mates and talk to you about my experiences of studying at PKU this year. Although I have only been here for one year, I must say, it has been a pretty unforgettable experience.As I am sure most of you here will know, it is commonly acknowledged that PKU is the best university in China and for me, being taught by professors who are industry leading and true experts in their fields has added incomparable value to the programme that I have been here to study. So on behalf of the rest of the LLM students here I would like to say thank you to all of our professors, for all the knowledge they have imparted on us this year.

The PKU law school has offered all the LLM students valuable insights into legal work in China, not only through the experiences of our professors, but also through our class excursions. This year we have been lucky enough to watch an Intellectual Property dispute hearing at the Intellectual Property Disputes Court in Beijing, visit and talk with law firms around Beijing and attend presentations at Arbitration institutes, all experiences that we were only able to have because we arestudents here at PKU.

This year’s LLM programme consists of scholars from more than 10 countries and I think my class will all agree that our lessons are not limited to learning only about Chinese law but take a more international perspective, I have learned more about US and Danish law than I ever thought I would. What has been particularly lovelythough is how close our group has grown to be, not just within the confines ofour lessons, but also outside; and I am pretty confident in being able to say that I have made friends at PKU that I will keep for life.

As well as devoting myself to the LLM programme and of course, studying hard, I have loved the experience of being able to live here in China.  Visiting the tourist sites was a must, but I have to say there are so many non-tourist things to do which have made my life here so interesting. Over the last year I have taken a trip to Inner Mongolia where I slept in a yurt and rode uncontrollable Mongolian horses, pedalled a duck boat in Beihai Park, ordered countless numbers of items from Taobao and climbed the great wall of china more times than I ever expected I would.

As an international student here at PKU it has also been wonderful to have been able to share some of my own British culture by way of the School’s International Culture fair; it seems that Scones and tea are equally as popular amongst Chinese people as they are with the English!

All in all, what can I say? My time here at PKU and more broadly my time in China has been amazing. This year has beenone of the best experiences of my life so far and is certainly something that I will always look back on with the fondest of memories.

So finally, I just want to close by saying congratulations to everyone here who is graduating with me today. Wecan all be proud that we have managed to graduate from the best university in China!

On this memorable day, I hope that you all enjoy your successand, as a PKU graduate, I wish you the best of luck in the future