For all the new graduates on Chief Delphi, I hope you will have an inspiring graduation ceremony. Here is a an article of many fantastic commencement speakers.
I had the honor to attend Salman Khan’s talk at Rice University in person. I highly suggest listening to his speech the most. Khan is one of those figures who has transformed education and his story is fascinating.
The IB Times article makes me wonder how many other great commencement speeches are available on the web?
Bill Gates address at Harvard:
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/06/remarks-of-bill-gates-harvard-commencement-2007/
Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012
[http://vimeo.com/42372767](Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012)
Not sure if it’s just me or not, but I had to copy-paste the link to get it to work. Just a heads up for anyone else.
Neil Gaiman is awesome. I definitely recommend watching this.
I don’t think it is possible for anyone to have missed Steve Job’s address at Stanford in 2005, but if you lived under a rock there it is.
On the other side, I enjoyed Tim Cook’s address to Auburnas well.
Randy Pausch’s final address to CMUis very good, and even better if you’ve seen his Last Lecture.
Adam Savage’s remarksat Sarah Lawrence are pretty good, but in my opinion his TED talk on his obsessionsis probably the most inspring 15 minutes I’ve ever sat through. Its just so good… I’ve watched it more times than I might care to admit.
While this may not be the most eloquent speech it is one that I will remember for a few reasons. Ray Bradbury was conferred an honorary degree by my undergrad. He was unable to come due to an illness but he recorded a video for us. His presentation starts at about 7:00 minutes in.
To summarize for those that aren’t going to watch, he talks about how he didn’t go to school because he was poor, but, he went to the library and earned a degree in library. He then talks about how all you need to do is do what you love, and how he did what he loved his entire life, and how that is all that matters.
Keep that in mind, if you go into the working world and don’t end up liking what you are doing take time to re-evaluate where you are, and where you have been, and what makes you truly happy, before it becomes too late.
Another interesting read or video
Michael Lewis’s “Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie” Princeton 2012 Baccalaureate Remarks
At my own own commencement a few weeks ago our keynote speaker gave a canned decidedly boring uninspiring speech. They gave an honorary degree to Steven Chu, US Secretary of Energy and his comments were very good. He brought a bunch of quotes about technology, the most interesting of which was the following from the mid 1830s.
Worth noting that the Atlantic was crossed by both the Sirius and the Great Western in 1838. The Voyage to the moon came roughly 130 years later. 