Story: June 2020
It’s a graduation season, but very limited circumstances under the COVID-19. Some public figures are sending congratulations to class 2020 on YouTube.
In the past commencement speaker mentions that they don’t remember who was a commencement speaker and what s/he talked about at their graduation ceremony. Even so, a ceremony is important for everyone, students as well as parents.
A commencement speech is a very philosophical theme and useful in life. Therefore, I listening repeatedly.
David Rubenstein, Duke University Commencement 2017 Speaker
©Duke University
– Great opening. Make a laugh audience.
– He doesn’t read a note. Look at the audience.
– He speaks a little fast. It’s his habit.
– Asked audience. Maintain audience concentration.
– Go Duke, easy to memorize.
– Gratitude, work for others and express appreciation.
– Originality, try to think of something that somebody else hasn’t done.
– Difference, try to make a world a slightly better place.
– Unrelenting, don’t accept no. Persist.
– Knowledge, great pleasure of life is exercising the brain.
– Enjoyment, life is not designed for just drudgery, hard work and pushing.
Stephen Colbert 2011 Commencement Speech at Northwestern University
©Joshua Sherman ©NorthwesternU
This is the native speech. Very engaged, but not easy to understand everything what he said.
Maz Jobrani Delivers UC Berkeley Commencement Keynote Speech
©UC Berkeley
Very unusual commencement speech. He is not authority, but a comedian. If no one remembers what commencement speaker said in the future, sharing the moment will be meaningful.
– Good words, good thought, good deeds.
– Follow the passion, live the passion.
– It was not strong conclusion, it seems Class 2017 would be happy.
When we want to tell a serious story, we should not tell so seriously. Make it fun. Engage with a audience. They may not remember your single words. Don’t expect anything. At least, you can cultivate extraordinary experience.
Very wonder country, The United States of America. Many people who come from all over the place build the country, America. I don’t know the meaning of the country anymore.
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg Speech | Harvard Commencement 2016
©Harvard University
-In a two-hour movie you get a handful of character defining moments, but in real life you face them every day life. Life is one straw a strong long string of character defining moment.
– For the first 25 years of our lives we are trained to listen to voice that are not our own.
– Your conscience shouts here’s what you should do while your intuition whispers here’s what you could do.
– If you didn’t know history, you didn’t know anything. You were a lesf didn’t know it was part of a tree
Meryl Streep, Barnard Commencement Speaker 2010, Columbia University
©Columbia University
– If successfully convincing someone bigger than you are of something he doesn’t know is a survival skill, this is how women have survived through the milennia.
– Being a celebrity has taught me to hide out, but being an actor has opened my soul.
Michelle Obama Commencement Speech 2015
©Oberlin College & Conservatory
– Today you bid farewell to the safe security of academic environment you prepare to continue your journey on the clamorous highways of life, Dr. Martin Luther King
– In the real world, there are plenty of people who think very differently than you do. They hold their opinions just as passionately. if you want to change their mind, if you want to work with them to move this country forward, you can’t just shut them out. you have to persuade them and compromise with them.
– The absolutist may avoid the problem of dirty hands, but the cost of having no hands at all.
– The men and women we this memorial they have sacrificed their lives for your freedom to make your voice heard.
– Climate change, economic inequality, human rights, criminal justice, these are the revolutions of your time.
Howard University Commencement 2016 | President Barack Obama
©WHUT DC Channel 32
It’s not Harvard, Howard, but I think a quite high ranking university. Because of Barack Obama presents commencement speech here.
– Democracy requires compromise even you are 100% right.
US Congressman Rep. John Lewis: 2018 BU Commencement Speaker
©Boston University
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil-rights leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until he died in 2020. Lewis served as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966. – Wikipedia
I watched the news. His contribution to the United States is a historical legacy.
– When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Stand up, speak up, speak out.
Conclusion: Message for all generation
I feel that the graduation ceremony of the college is a really big event in the United States and Canada. The speaker always thanks the contribution of parents.
I need these feelings, thankful. My generation doesn’t know much tough situation compare to my parent’s generation. At least, I grew up in a low middle-class family in Japan. Going to college is quite normal. I cannot say thanks to my parents easily. I assume that if I grew up in Canada, the relationship might be different.
Not only the speaker’s message, but I can reflect on myself when I listen to the commencement speech.
