graduation talk

U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama had chosen to enlighten the graduates of University of California-Merced as she delivered her first commencement speech as the First Lady of the country.

She started her inspiring message by mentioning the reasons why she had accepted the university’s invitation to be the keynote speaker. Michelle also appreciated their efforts in getting what they wanted and she compared it to the similar strategy they had used to convince the University of California to put up a new campus in Merced. The history of Merced was also noted in her speech as she correlated Merced to the South Side of Chicago (the place where she grew up) and honored the people who worked very hard to pass on the legacy of education to the them.

Michelle encouraged the graduates to give back a part of their aspirations to their community as they dream and achieve their dreams. I totally agreed with her when she said that time will come when “you will face tough times, you will certainly have doubts” because life is not a bed of roses for roses have their own thorns. She reminded them that when things go wrong, they must not quit and when that time comes they must think of all the people who had sacrificed for their education. She believed that attaining a college degree is a blessing because not everyone gets a chance to have it. With this blessing, Michelle urged the graduates to share it by reaching out to others and passing the torch so that the next generation will see the light to a better life.

Here is the video and transcript of the commencement address by U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, delivered on May 16, 2009 at University of California-Merced.

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U.S. President Obama’s commencement speech as the University of Notre Dame turned out to be a controversial one. As he gave some inspirations to the new graduates, Obama touched one of the most explosive subjects nowadays, which is the abortion debate. He challenged them to seek the common goal of the two contradicting sides and have “Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words”.

Obama did not denied his stand on supporting the abortion rights but he clarified that the procedure should only be applied on rare cases. He also suggested ways to prevent abortion by “working together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term”.

Aside from confronting the abortion issue, Obama advised the graduates to take part on rebuilding the economy and act in response to the global economy crisis that hit over countries by valuing fairness, and diligence, and an honest day’s work.

He ended the speech with a reminder that everyone is a fisherman; everyone seeks the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived so each one must carry each other’s burdens.

This is the video and transcript of the commencement address by U.S. President Barack Obama, delivered on May 17, 2009 at University of Notre Dame.

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J.K. Rowling had taken the path less traveled by other commencement speakers. Instead of talking about great success ahead of the graduates, she focused on the importance of failure and the power of imagination.

Rowling allowed her audience to enter her own “pensieve” and use it to review her memories before Harry Potter became famous. It was a quick flash back of her parents’ poverty, college days’ dilemma, marriage issues, early failures and struggle as a single mom. She also shared her life-changing experience while working for Amnesty International.

On the second part of her speech, Rowling educated the graduates on how to overcome life’s failures with their own imagination. She stressed that we all had the power to view life in another person’s perspective and to live in someone else’s shoes through imagination. If we want to change the world into a better place, we must start within ourselves.

Here are some of the winning points of the speech:

• Some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
• You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.
• We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

This is the video and transcript of the commencement address by J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivered on June 5, 2008 at Harvard University.

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Considering his incredible accomplishments, wealth, and position, I think Bill Gates gave an enlightening speech at Harvard. He spoke about why he believes the opportunity exists as never before to solve major inequities in the world and how today’s graduates can step up to make it happen: “You graduates came to Harvard at a different time. You know more about the world’s inequities than the classes that came before.”

There was a lot to take from it but the following points really struck a chord in me:

“The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity.”
“To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps.”
“If you want to inspire people to participate, you have to show more than numbers; you have to convey the human impact of the work—so people can feel what saving a life means to the families affected.”

Bill Gates stressed the importance of thinking globally and helping others. He enumerated the problems that the world is facing: education and health care: sickness, death, ignorance and illiteracy. These problems are yet to be solved and all that pretty and fluffy stuff can come later. He believed that from those to whom much is given, much is expected. At the end of the speech, he proved that he is indeed Harvard’s most successful dropout.

This is the video and transcript of the commencement address by Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft, delivered on June 7, 2007 at Harvard University.

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In his speech, Steve Jobs spoke frankly about his opinions on entrepreneurship, work, and life. He reflected on what kept him going through challenging times and stressed on the importance of “finding something you love” and “following your own inner voice.”

Had I read it sooner, it would have made a lot of things easier. It relayed some few but important, inspiring and life-changing points in life. They are just simple things and yet we often neglect them.

• You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
• Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. You’ve got to find what you love. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.
• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

He ended his speech with these words, Stay Hungry! Stay Foolish!. Perhaps he wanted to leave a challenge to millions and millions of aspiring individuals that we all have the right to dream “crazy dreams” for who knows what we’ll achieved at the end of the day. We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

This is the video and text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005 at Stanford University.

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