应届毕业典礼精炼三分钟英语演讲稿范文（精选35篇）
At other places, but I’m happy to say not yet at Purdue, students have demanded to be kept, quote, “safe” from speech, that is, mere words, that challenge or discomfit them. At one large university, one, quote, “study”, I enclose it in quotes, purported to find a quarter of the student body suffering from PTSD because of an election outcome. Referring to such young people, someone has coined the distasteful but descriptive term “snowflakes.”
Some find a cause in the social media, which have reduced personal interaction among your younger contemporaries. Easier grading in high schools can lead to an unexpected jolt when a student arrives at college, at least if it’s a place like Purdue where top grades are still hard to come by. Another diagnosis points to overprotective parenting that limits some children’s opportunities to play and explore in unsupervised ways that require them to solve problems and resolve conflicts on their own.
Since that year – since the year I graduated – the poverty rate is down. Americans with college degrees, that rate is up. Crime rates are down. America’s cities have undergone a renaissance. There are more women in the workforce. They’re earning more money. We’ve cut teen pregnancy in half. We’ve slashed the African American dropout rate by almost 60 percent, and all of you have a computer in your pocket that gives you the world at the touch of a button. In 1983, I was part of fewer than 10 percent of African Americans who graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Today, you are part of the more than 20 percent who will. And more than half of blacks say we’re better off than our parents were at our age – and that our kids will be better off, too.So America is better. And the world is better, too. A wall came down in Berlin. An Iron Curtain was torn asunder.
At least for the foreseeable future, winning the battle against climate change will depend less on scientific advancement and more on political activism.
And that’s why Beyond Carbon includes political spending that will mobilize voters to go to the polls and support candidates who actually are taking action on something that could end life on Earth as we know it. At the same time, we will defeat at the voting booth those who try to block action and those who pander with rhetoric that just kicks the can down the road.
Our message to elected officials will be simple: face reality on climate change or face the music on Election Day. Our lives and our children’s lives depend on it – and so should their political careers.
Now, most of America will experience a net increase in jobs as we move to renewable energy sources and reduction in pollution. But in some places, jobs are being lost – we know that, and we can’t leave those communities behind.
For example, generations of miners powered America to greatness – and many paid for it with their lives and their health. But today, they need our help to change with technology and the economy.
And while it is up to the federal government to make those investments, Beyond Carbon will continue our foundation’s work to show that progress really is possible. So…it certainly does deserve a round of applause. So we will support local organizations in Appalachia and the Western mountain states, and work to spur economic growth, and retrain workers for jobs in growing industries.
But you got here. And you’ve all worked hard to reach this day. You’ve shuttled between challenging classes and Greek life. You’ve led clubs, played an instrument or a sport. You volunteered, you interned, held down one, two, maybe three jobs. You’ve made lifelong friends and discovered exactly what you’re made of. The “Howard Hustle” has strengthened your sense of purpose and ambition, which means you are part of a long line of Howard graduates. Some are on this stage today. Some are in the audience. That spirit of achievement and special responsibility has defined this campus ever since the Freedman’s Bureau established Howard just four years after the Emancipation Proclamation; just two years after the Civil War came to an end. They created this university with a vision – a vision of uplift; a vision for an America where our fates would be determined not by our race, gender, religion or creed, but where we would be free – in every sense – to pursue our individual and collective dreams.
It is that spirit that’s made Howard a centerpiece of African-American intellectual life and a central part of our larger American story. This institution has been the home of many firsts: The first black Nobel Peace Prize winner. The first black Supreme Court justice. But its mission has been to ensure those firsts were not the last. Countless scholars, professionals, artists, and leaders from every field received their training here. The generations of men and women who walked through this yard helped reform our government, cure disease, grow a black middle class, advance civil rights, shape our culture. The seeds of change – for all Americans – were sown here. And that’s what I want to talk about today.
So that’s why today – when your bags are packed, your friends are dispersing, and your place in this class is carved in stone – I want you to take a moment. Forget about the power you might have had here and think instead about the power you will have in the future – in 10, 20, 30 years – and promise yourself something. Promise yourself that when you find your power, you will use it thoughtfully, with restraint, and with good intention.
You will be powerful. And when you are, do not abuse your power. Ever.
Now, I’m sure that in the course of your lifetime, including the last four years, you have witnessed power and its abuse. When you were young, you probably saw it on the playground. You’ve seen it on this campus. We certainly have all seen it in our nation, and around the world.
In my own lifetime, I’ve seen too many people make decisions that put themselves before their community, before society, before the health of our planet. I’ve seen too many people who choose to build walls rather than bridges.
Sometimes, it’s because of the arrogance of their certitude, or because of simple, blissful unawareness. Sometimes, it’s because of their ego, or self-deception, and sometimes, it’s a deliberate act of revenge. Other times, it’s the primal, addictive pursuit of conquest – conquest of all kinds.
On this 75th Anniversary of D-Day, I can comfortably speak for everyone when I say we are honoured to be in the presence of six Normandy Landing veterans.
To all who are on parade today, I can only say that you are a constant reminder of the great debt we owe those who have served this nation.
You embody the fitting home that awaits them in the peace and tranquillity of the Royal Hospital, should they want it.
But more widely, wherever you are, your presence is a symbol of the sacrifices that have been made by all veterans to sustain the freedoms and democracy we value so deeply today.
Ladies and Gentleman, could I ask that those who are able to, please stand in recognition of our veterans. We stand together and remember those who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
And for you here today, who have served us so greatly and with such honour, I congratulate you on the smartness of your turnout and the steadiness of your bearing. I thank you for inviting me here today and I wish you all the health and happiness you so richly deserve.
Thank you.
If I could teach a class in how to live your best life, it would include some gems I've gotten from world leaders. But also some I have not. Yes, it does pay to floss. Yes, you need to look people in the eye when you speak to them. You need to keep your commitments, you need to make your bed every day because when you do, it makes your whole house look better. And you need to leave your cell phone away at the dinner table.
I put so many of those in a book that I did for graduates like you. I wrote The Path Made Clear with gems of wisdom from thought leaders. Since I know you just wanna get that diploma, I’m gonna save all my wisdom for my book…You get a book and you get a book and you get a book! Everybody gets a book! Congratulations class of 20xx!As the chairman said, I majored in electrical engineering. So I know what you’re all thinking – it’s a shame he was never able to put his degree to good use. I thought that was funnier than you did, thank you.
Let me start with the most important message that I can deliver today – congratulations to the distinguished graduates of the great Class of 20xx. You made it. All those long hours studying, and in the lab, the quizzes, the papers, and the swim tests, it was all for today – well, that and the brass rat.
So today, I’m happy to announce that, with our foundation, I’m committing $500 million to the launch of a new national climate initiative, and I hope that you will all become part of it. We are calling it Beyond Carbon. The last one was Beyond Coal, this is Beyond Carbon because we have greater goals.
Our goal is to move the U.S. towards a 100% cleaner energy economy as expeditiously as possible, and begin that process right now. We intend to succeed not by sacrificing things we need, but by investing in things we want: the more good jobs, cleaner air and water, cheaper power, more transportation options, and less congested roads that we can get.
We know that closing every last U.S. coal-fired power plant over the next two years is achievable because we’re already more than halfway there. Through a partnership between Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Sierra Club, we’ve shut down 289 coal-fired power plants since 20xx, and…and that includes 51 that we have retired since the 20xx presidential election despite all the bluster from the White House. As a matter of fact, since Trump got elected, the rate of closure has gone up.
Second, we will work to stop the construction of new gas plants. By the time they are built, they will be out of date – because renewable energy will be cheaper. Cities like Los Angeles are already stopping new gas plant construction in favor of renewable energy. And states like New Mexico, and Washington, and Hawaii, and California are working to convert their electric system to 100 percent clean energy.
We don’t want to replace one fossil fuel with another. We want to build a clean energy economy – and we will push more states to do that.
The obscenity of apartheid came to an end. A young generation in Belfast and London have grown up without ever having to think about IRA bombs. In just the past 16 years, we’ve come from a world without marriage equality to one where it’s a reality in nearly two dozen countries. Around the world, more people live in democracies. We’ve lifted more than 1 billion people from extreme poverty. We’ve cut the child mortality rate worldwide by more than half.
America is better. The world is better. And stay with me now – race relations are better since I graduated. That’s the truth. No, my election did not create a post-racial society. I don’t know who was propagating that notion. That was not mine. But the election itself – and the subsequent one – because the first one, folks might have made a mistake. (Laughter.) The second one, they knew what they were getting. The election itself was just one indicator of how attitudes had changed.
The thing that was a source of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.And when I realized and really understood that my self is a projection and that it has a function, a funny thing happened. I stopped giving it so much authority. I give it its due. I take it to therapy. I've become very familiar with its dysfunctional behavior. But I'm not ashamed of my self. In fact, I respect my self and its function. And over time and with practice, I've tried to live more and more from my essence. And if you can do that, incredible things happen.I was in Congo in February, dancing and celebrating with women who've survived the destruction of their selves in literally unthinkable ways -- destroyed because other brutalized,
WeAreTheWorld,WeAreTheFutureSomeonesaid“wearereadingthefirstverseofthefirstchapterofabook,whosepagesareinfinite”.Idon’tknowwhowrotethesewords,butI’vealwayslikedthemasareminderthatthefuturecanbeanythingwewantittobe.Weareallinthepositionofthefarmers.Ifweplantagoodseed,wereapagoodharvest.Ifweplantnothingatall,weharvestnothingatall.Weareyoung.“Howtospendtheyo
Itisameaningfulquestion.Toanswerit,firstIhavetoask“whatdoyouunderstandbythewordyouth?”Youthisnotatimeoflife,it’sastateofmind.It’snotamatterofrosycheeks,redlipsorsuppleknees.It’sthematterofthewill.It’sthefreshnessofthedeepspringoflife.Apoetsaid“Toseeaworldinagrainofsand,andaheaveninawildflower,holdinfinityinthepalmofyourhand,andeternityinanhour.Severaldaysago,Ihadachancetolistentoalecture.Ilearntalotthere.I’dliketoshareitwithallofyou.Let’sshowourrightpalms.Wecanseethreelinesthatshowhowourlove.careerandlifeis.Ihaveashortlineoflife.Whataboutyours?
I do a lot of graduations, lecturing, talking, and exchanging with the girls, we talk about passion and purpose and realizing your dream. But I realized I was confusing them and their expectations were out of wack. One of my daughter girls two years ago graduated with an internship, bought a used a car, all with no help from me. She’d only been working about six months and called me and said "Mama O, they want to give me a promotion, and I don’t want to take it because I don’t think it fulfills my purpose.” And I said “Your purpose right now is to keep that job! To do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do." (I borrowed that line from the great debaters.)
For years, I had a job, and after years of doing what I didn’t want to do, I ended up finding my life’s calling. My job ended when I was 28 years old. I got my first job in radio at 16, got on tv at 19, and every day I said "I don’t know if this is what I’m really supposed to be doing." But my father was like: ‘You better keep that job!" At 28, it wasn’t working out on the news because I was too emotional. I would cry while interviewing someone who had lost their home. I was told that I was going to be talking on the evening news and put on a talk show, and that was a demotion for me at the time. But that actually worked out for me.
For years at graduations I’ve said there’s no such thing as failure. But there is. I’ve also said failure is life pointing you in a different direction, and it indeed does. But in the moment when you fail, it really feels bad. It’s embarrassing…and it’s bad, and it’s going to happen to you if you keep living. But I guarantee you it also will pass, and you will be fine. Why? Because everything is always working out for you.
We see it every day now, with every data breach, every privacy violation, every blind eye turned to hate speech. Fake news poisoning our national conversation. The false miracles in exchange for a single drop of your blood. Too many seem to think that good intentions excuse away harmful outcomes.
But whether you like it or not, what you build and what you create define who you are.
It feels a bit crazy that anyone should have to say this. But if you’ve built a chaos factory, you can’t dodge responsibility for the chaos. Taking responsibility means having the courage to think things through.
And there are few areas where this is more important than privacy.
If we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything in our lives can be aggregated, sold, or even leaked in the event of a hack, then we lose so much more than data.
We lose the freedom to be human.
Now, a lot of you – the vast majority – won’t find yourselves in tech at all. That’s as it should be. We need your minds at work far and wide, because our challenges are great, and they can’t be solved by any single industry.
No matter where you go, no matter what you do, I know you will be ambitious. You wouldn’t be here today if you weren’t. Match that ambition with humility – a humility of purpose.
That doesn’t mean being tamer, being smaller, being less in what you do. It’s the opposite, it’s about serving something greater. The author Madeleine L’Engle wrote, “Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.”
In other words, whatever you do with your life, be a builder.
You don’t have to start from scratch to build something monumental. And, conversely, the best founders – the ones whose creations last and whose reputations grow rather than shrink with passing time – they spend most of their time building, piece by piece.
Builders are comfortable in the belief that their life’s work will one day be bigger than them – bigger than any one person. They’re mindful that its effects will span generations. That’s not an accident. In a way, it’s the whole point.
When the door was busted open by police, it was not the knock of opportunity or the call of destiny. It was just another instance of the world telling them that they ought to feel worthless for being different.
Third, we will support our most powerful allies – governors, mayors, and legislators – in their pursuit of ambitious policies and laws. And we will empower the grassroots army of activists and environmental groups that are currently driving progress state by state.
Together, we will push for new incentives and mandates that increase renewable power, pollution-free buildings, waste-free energy, access to mass transit, and sales of electric vehicles, which are now turning the combustion engine – and all of its pollution – into a relic of the Industrial Revolution.
Fourth, and finally, we will get deeply involved in elections across the country, because climate change is now first and foremost a political problem, not a scientific quandary or even a technological puzzle.
Now, I know that, as scientists and engineers, “politics” can be a dirty word. I’m an engineer – I get it. But I’m also a realist, so I have three words for you: get over it.
Taken together, these four elements of Beyond Carbon will be the largest coordinated assault on the climate crisis that our country has ever undertaken.
Thank you. We will work to empower and expand the volunteers and activists fighting these battles community by community, state by state. It’s a process that our foundation and I have proved can succeed. After all, this isn’t the first time we’ve done an end run around Washington.
A decade ago, no one would have believed that we could take on the coal industry and close half of all U.S. plants, but we have.
A decade ago, no one would have believed we could take on the NRA and pass stronger gun safety laws in states like Florida, Colorado, and Nevada, but we have.
Two decades ago, no one would have believed that we could take on the tobacco industry and spread New York City’s smoking ban to most of America and to countries around the world, but we have.
And now, we will take on the fossil fuel industry to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. I believe we will succeed again – but only if one thing happens, and that is: you have to help lead the way by raising your voices, by joining an advocacy group, by knocking on doors, by calling your elected officials, by voting, and getting your friends and family to join you.
Back in the 1960s, when scientists here at MIT were racing to the moon, there was a populist saying that went: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Today, Washington is a very, very big part of the problem.
Saying goodbye to childhood,we step into another important time in the pace of young,facing new situations,dealing with different problems……everyone has his ownunderstanding of young,it is a period of time of beauty and wonders,only after you have experienced the sour ,sweet ,bitter and salty can you really become a person of significance.thre time of young is limitted,it may pass by without your attention,and when you discover what has happened ,it is always too late.grasping the young well means a better time is waiting for you in the near future,or the situation may be opposite .
And I know what you're thinking. You know, I'm up here bagging out inspiration, and you're thinking, "Jeez, Stella, aren't you inspired sometimes by some things?" And the thing is, I am. I learn from other disabled people all the time. I'm learning not that I am luckier than them, though. I am learning that it's a genius idea to use a pair of barbecue tongs to pick up things that you dropped. (Laughter) I'm learning that nifty trick where you can charge your mobile phone battery from your chair battery. Genius. We are learning from each others' strength and endurance, not against our bodies and our diagnoses, but against a world that exceptionalizes and objectifies us. I really think that this lie that we've been sold about disability is the greatest injustice. It makes life hard for us. And that quote, "The only disability in life is a bad attitude," the reason that that's bullshit is because it's just not true, because of the social model of disability. No amount of smiling at a flight of stairs has ever made it turn into a ramp. Never. (Laughter) (Applause) Smiling at a television screen isn't going to make closed captions appear for people who are deaf. No amount of standing in the middle of a bookshop and radiating a positive attitude is going to turn all those books into braille. It's just not going to happen.
You know I learned a fact about airplanes the other day. This was – this was so surprising to see, I was talking to a pilot and he told me that many of his passengers think planes are dangerous to fly in. But he said actually, it is a lot more dangerous for a plane to stay on the ground. I say what? Like how does that sound what he said, he said because on the ground, the plane starts to rust.Malfunction and wear, much faster than it ever would if it was in the air. As I walked away I thought, yeah, makes total sense because planes were built to live in the skies. And every person was built to live out the dream they have inside. So it is perhaps the saddest loss to live a life on the ground without ever taking off.
Today, I believe that we are living in a similar moment. And once again, we’ll be counting on MIT graduates – all of you – to lead us.
But this time, our most important and pressing mission – your generation’s mission – is not to explore deep space and reach faraway places. It is to save our own planet, the one that we’re living on, from climate change. And unlike 1962, the primary challenge before you is not scientific or technological. It is political.
The fact is we’ve already pioneered the technology to tackle climate change. We know how to power buildings using sun and wind. We know how to power vehicles using batteries charged with renewable energy. We know how to power factories and industries using hydrogen and fuel cells. And we know that these innovations don’t require us to sacrifice financially or economically. Just the opposite, these investments, on balance, create jobs and save money.
Yes, all of those power sources need to be brought to scale – and that will require further scientific innovation, which we need you to help lead. But the question isn’t how to tackle climate change. We’ve known how to do that for many years. The question is: why the hell are we moving so slowly?
The race we are in is against time, and we are losing. And with each passing year, it becomes clearer just how far behind we’ve fallen, and how fast the situation is deteriorating, and how tragic the results can be.
In just the four years that you’ve been here at the Farm, things feel like they have taken a sharp turn.
Crisis has tempered optimism. Consequences have challenged idealism. And reality has shaken blind faith.
And yet we are all still drawn here.
For good reason.
Big dreams live here, as do the genius and passion to make them real. In an age of cynicism, this place still believes that the human capacity to solve problems is boundless.
But so, it seems, is our potential to create them.
That’s what I’m interested in talking about today. Because if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that technology doesn’t change who we are, it magnifies who we are, the good and the bad.
Our problems – in technology, in politics, wherever – are human problems. From the Garden of Eden to today, it’s our humanity that got us into this mess, and it’s our humanity that’s going to have to get us out.
First things first, here’s a plain fact.
Silicon Valley is responsible for some of the most revolutionary inventions in modern history.
From the first oscillator built in the Hewlett-Packard garage to the iPhones that I know you’re holding in your hands.
Social media, shareable video, snaps and stories that connect half the people on Earth. They all trace their roots to Stanford’s backyard.
But lately, it seems, this industry is becoming better known for a less noble innovation: the belief that you can claim credit without accepting responsibility.
President Kennedy needed to persuade the taxpayers that a manned mission to the moon was possible and worth doing. So in 1962, he delivered a speech that inspired the country. He said, quote, “We choose to go to the moon this decade, and to do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” Sorry, I didn’t mean to say “hard.” I meant to say hard. I don’t want to lose my Boston accent.
In that one sentence, Kennedy summed up mankind’s inherent need to reach for the stars. He continued by saying, quote, “That challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one that we are unwilling to postpone, and one that we intend to win.”
In other words, for the good of the United States, and humanity, it had to be done. And he was right. Neil Armstrong took a great leap for mankind. The U.S. won a major Cold War victory, and decades of scientific innovation led to an unprecedented era of technological advancement.
The inventions that emerged from the moonshot changed the world: satellite television, computer microchips, CAT scan machines, and many other things that we now take for granted – even video game joysticks. Yes, there really was a life before Xbox.
The world we live in today is fundamentally different, not just because we landed on the moon, but because we tried to get there in the first place. In hindsight, President Kennedy’s call for the original moonshot at exactly the right moment in history was brilliant. And the brightest minds of their generation – many of them MIT graduates – delivered it.
But make no mistake, engagement with the arts is integral to the experience of every Dartmouth student – not just those who actively create art. I grew up in a small mining town in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. A rough-and-tumble place, my town had no shortage of taverns, but not a single movie theater. So, when I arrived at Dartmouth in the fall of 1973, movies were a magnificent, unexplored terrain; and the Film Society became my obsession. My freshman fall, the Film Society ran a series of John Ford classics, and I marveled at these films – how they could stir such deep feelings with their irony and nostalgia. A year later, the Film Society became yesterday’s news when Springsteen played at the Hop.
For me, the arts at Dartmouth opened my mind to entirely new ways of thinking, helped me see the world as it is, and imagine the world as it could be.
Class of ’19, you embody Dartmouth’s lofty mission: to prepare our graduates to lead lives of leadership and impact. The arts have always been a magnetic presence on this campus exactly because they are core to that mission.
See most of us are afraid of the thief, they comes in the night to steal all of our things. But there is a thief in your mind who is after your dreams. His name is doubt.If you see him call the cops and keep him away from the kids because he is wanted for murder. So he has killed more dreams than failure ever did. He wears many disguises and like a virus will leave you blinded, divided and turn you into a kinda.See kinda is lethal. You know what kinda is? There is a lot of kinda people, you kinda want a career change, you kinda want to get straight As, you kinda want to get in shape. Simple math, no numbers to crunch. If you kinda want something, then you will kinda get the results you want.
I would like to leave you now by playing one song. It’s called…it’s called the “Song of the Birds” – Pablo Casals’ favorite folk song from his beloved Catalonia. A love song to nature and humanity, a song about freedom, about the freedom of birds when they take flight, soaring across borders.
And I would like to dedicate this piece to you, Class of 20xx, with, once again, my heartiest congratulations.Graduates at universities and colleges around the United States are wrapping up the academic year, preparing to face a new era of life. As part of that tradition, celebrities, politicians, athletes, CEOs and artists are offering a range of life advice in commencement addresses.
Here is the commencement speech by Oprah Winfrey at Colorado College in 20xx.
In it, she tells college graduates in Colorado small steps lead to big accomplishments.
Winfrey quoted black activist Angela Davis, who said: "You have to act as if it were possible to radically change the world. And you have to do it all the time."
Winfrey says change doesn't happen with big breakthroughs so much as day-to-day decisions.
The television personality and philanthropist once gave away a car to everybody in the audience on her show. Winfrey didn't give the college graduates cars but copies of her book, "The Path Made Clear."
She told them to expect failure in life but know that everything will be OK.
To the family members and friends of our Stanford graduates, I say “thank you,” as well, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for entrusting your loved ones to our university in their time here, and thank you for all that you have done to ensure their success.
It’s now my pleasure to turn the program over to Stanford’s Provost Persis Drell, who will present the winners of the University’s awards. Well, thank you, Provost Drell.
It’s one of my great honors, as Stanford’s president, to address our graduating class on Commencement day.
Class of 20xx, your years at Stanford have been a time of intellectual exploration, remarkable accomplishment, and extraordinary hard work and dedication.
Today, we honor everything that you have achieved during your time at Stanford, and we celebrate as you embark on the next stage of your journey.
Today’s ceremony marks the conclusion of your time as Stanford students. But I have great hope that, here at Stanford, you have acquired the tools and skills to remain learners for life. And even as you leave our campus behind, you will forever remain a cherished part of our Stanford family.
This is my third Commencement as Stanford’s president.
Since I returned to Stanford three years ago, I have been reflecting on the fact that Jane and Leland Stanford founded this university with a specific purpose – namely, to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity.
I tell you all this because it’s important to note progress. Because to deny how far we’ve come would do a disservice to the cause of justice, to the legions of foot soldiers; to not only the incredibly accomplished individuals who have already been mentioned, but your mothers and your dads, and grandparents and great grandparents, who marched and toiled and suffered and overcame to make this day possible. I tell you this not to lull you into complacency, but to spur you into action – because there’s still so much more work to do, so many more miles to travel. And America needs you to gladly, happily take up that work. You all have some work to do. So enjoy the party, because you’re going to be busy. (Laughter.)
Yes, our economy has recovered from crisis stronger than almost any other in the world. But there are folks of all races who are still hurting – who still can’t find work that pays enough to keep the lights on, who still can’t save for retirement. We’ve still got a big racial gap in economic opportunity. The overall unemployment rate is 5 percent, but the black unemployment rate is almost nine. We’ve still got an achievement gap when black boys and girls graduate high school and college at lower rates than white boys and white girls. Harriet Tubman may be going on the twenty, but we’ve still got a gender gap when a black woman working full-time still earns just 66 percent of what a white man gets paid. (Applause.)
We’ve got a justice gap when too many black boys and girls pass through a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. This is one area where things have gotten worse. When I was in college, about half a million people in America were behind bars. Today, there are about 2.2 million. Black men are about six times likelier to be in prison right now than white men.
You have learned so much over the last four years. There’s very little I can say to you that you don’t already know. Some might even say you know it all. But seriously, if I could just add one little bit of wisdom, it’s this: that you will be powerful.
You, Dartmouth Class of 20xx, are individuals with enormous knowledge, skill, and capacity. Some of you will become entrepreneurs and CEOs. Some will be influential academics, journalists; others, great artists, jurists, athletes, and politicians. You will be great teachers, engineers, researchers, nurses, doctors, financiers, parents, social innovators.
It may take you one year or 30, but each one of you sitting out there today is going to be powerful. You are going to be in a position to set examples and to make decisions.
Yes, decisions that will affect not only your life, but also the lives of those around you: your families, your friends, your colleague – even me, if I live long enough.
And your decisions will also affect people you’ll never meet – future generations. So, that’s power. But power isn’t something we are necessarily born with knowing how to use well. There’s no instruction manual; there’s no guide to exercising power with care and restraint.
we have to be part of a solution through political activism that puts the screws to our elected officials. Let me reiterate, this has gone from a scientific challenge to a political one. And it’s time for all of us to recognize that climate change is the challenge of our time.
As President Kennedy said 57 years ago on the moon mission, “we are willing to accept this challenge, we are unwilling to postpone it, and we intend to win it.” We must again do what is hard. Dammit, I meant to say hard.
Graduates, we need your minds and your creativity to achieve a clean energy future. But that’s not all. We need your voices. We need your votes. And we need you to help lead us where Washington will not. It may be a moonshot, but it’s the only shot we’ve got.
As you leave this campus, I hope you will carry with you the MIT’s tradition of taking – and making – moonshots. Be ambitious in every facet of your life. And don’t ever let something stop you because people say it’s impossible. Let those words inspire you. Because just as trying to make the impossible possible can lead to achievements you’ve never dreamed of. And sometimes, you actually do land on the moon.
The truth is, success is a process—you can ask anybody who’s been successful. I just passed on the lane up here here, successful restauranteur Danny Meyer, who’s sitting here with his family—Charles is graduating today. Ask Danny or anybody who’s successful, you go to any one of his restaurants—Shake Shack, love it!—Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern—you will be impressed by not only the food, but the radical hospital and service. Service is not just about when you’re getting served.
When I started my talk show, I was just so happy to be on television. I was so happy to interview members of the Ku Klux Klan. I thought I was interviewing them to show their vitriol to the world, and then I saw them using hand signals in the audience—and realized they were using me, and using my platform. Then we did a show where someone was embarrassed, and I was responsible for the embarrassment. We had somehow talked a man who was cheating on his wife to come on the show with the woman he was cheating with and, on live television, he told his wife that his girlfriend was pregnant. That happened on mywatch.
Shortly after I said: I’m not gonna do that again. How can I use this show to not just be a show, but allow it to be a service to the viewer? That question of "How do we serve the viewer?" transformed the show. And because we asked that question every single day from 1989 forward—with the intention of only doing what was in service to the people who were watching—that is why now, no matter where I go in the world, people say "I watched your show, it changed my life." People watched and were raised by that show. I did a good job of raising a lot of people, I must say. That happened because of an intention to be of service.
While data, evidence, logic, and reason provide one way to make sense of the world, the arts provide another: a distinct, yet complimentary mode of understanding oneself and experiencing the world, beyond facts and figures. Engagement with the arts has been shown to elevate resilience in the face of change, empathy and understanding of others, and capacity to solve problems.
And in today’s volatile world, having a well-developed creative capacity, in addition to strong analytic skills, is paramount. In fact, a 20xx World Economic Forum report placed creativity as one of the three most important work-related skills anticipated for 20xx.
So, my message to you today is simple: Never relinquish your paintbrush, your pen, your musical instrument, or any other creative tool at your disposal, because there is always another stroke, another stanza, another measure, another chapter in the work that will forever be known as you.
And when you see an opportunity to engage with the arts, or to support the arts, embrace it with all you’ve got.
Two weeks ago, I was in Spain. I made a pilgrimage to visit the home of one my great heroes, the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals. He was 97 years old when I was a freshman in college. He had lived through World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War II.
I was so lucky to have played for him when I was 7 years old. He said I was talented. His advice to me then: Make sure you have time to play baseball.
And I’ll let you imagine how that might have worked out.
But in reality, that wise counsel, “to make time for baseball,” was a profound reflection of the philosophy that motivated his life. Casals always thought of himself as a human being first, as a musician second, and only then a cellist. It’s a philosophy that I’ve held close to my heart for most of my own life.
Now, I had always known Casals as a great advocate for human dignity. But standing in his home two weeks ago, I understood what it meant for him to live that philosophy, what it meant for him to be a human being first. I began to understand just a few of the thousands of actions he took every day, every month. Each was in the service of his fellow human beings.
I saw letters of protest he wrote to newspapers from London to Tokyo. I saw meticulous, handwritten accounts of his enormous financial contributions to countless refugees fleeing the carnage of the Spanish Civil War – evidence of a powerful, humanistic life.
We've created entire value systems and a physical reality to support the worth of self. Look at the industry for self-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over. We'd be right in assuming that the self is an actual living thing. But it's not. It's a projection which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from the reality of death.But there is something that can give the self ultimate and infinite connection -- and that thing is oneness, our essence. The self's struggle for authenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator -- to you and to me. And that can happen with awareness -- awareness of the reality of oneness and the projection of self-hood.For a start, we can think about all the times when we do lose ourselves. It happens when I dance, when I'm acting. I'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. In those moments, I'm connected to everything --
As you heard earlier, just over on that side of Killian Court, showing off their spectacular red jackets are more than 170 members of the class of 1969. Apollo 11, as you heard, landed on the moon a few weeks after their MIT graduation. A number of them went on to work in fields that were greatly…greatly accelerated by progress from Apollo 11. One of them is Irene Greif, the first woman to earn a PhD in computer science from MIT.
But I believe our 1969 graduates might all agree on the most important wisdom we gained from Apollo: It was the sudden intense understanding of our shared humanity and of the preciousness and fragility of our blue planet.
50 years later, those lessons feel more urgent than ever, and I believe that, as members of the great global family of MIT, we must do everything in our power to help make a better world. So it is in that spirit that I deliver my charge to you.
I’m going to use a word that feels very comfortable at MIT, although it has taken on a troubling new meaning elsewhere. But I know that our graduates will know what I mean.
After you depart for your new destinations, I want to ask you to hack the world until you make the world a little more like MIT – more daring and more passionate, more rigorous, inventive and ambitious, more humble, more respectful, more generous, more kind.
And because the people of MIT also like to fix things that are broken, as you strive to hack the world, please try to heal the world, too.