Year
Class of 2018
Browse commencement speeches from 2018, including addresses by Sterling K. Brown, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Mindy Kaling. Each record links to the available source material, transcript, video, and archive context.
5 addresses 10 themes 5 highlights
Highlights from 2018
Records with stronger source signals, summaries, transcripts, videos, or visual archive material.
Sterling K. Brown Stanford University Actor Sterling K. Brown, a Stanford alumnus, delivers a personal address blending humor with reflection on his own fear and perfectionism in writing the speech itself. Drawing on philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Lao Tzu, along with a Marianne Williamson passage, he urges graduates to overcome fear, embrace personal growth, and let their individual 'light' shine. He frames excellence as a communal act, encourages empathy across differences, and closes with a tribute to his late Stanford friend Andrew Jacob Daher, after whom he named his son. InfographicSummaryTranscriptVideoOfficial source 
Hillary Rodham Clinton Yale University In her 2018 Yale Class Day address, Hillary Clinton urged graduates to draw on resilience as they enter what she called one of the most tumultuous times in American history. She reflected on her own ties to Yale and her 2016 election loss, argued that the country needs 'radical empathy' and 'democratic resilience' to heal divisions, and called on graduates to defend truth, facts, and a free press while staying civically engaged. She expressed optimism rooted in Americans' toughness, rising numbers of women in politics, and growing willingness to speak out. InfographicSummaryVideoOfficial source 
Mindy Kaling Dartmouth College Mindy Kaling delivers a humorous commencement address to Dartmouth's class of 2018, mixing jokes about campus life, finance careers, and her own experiences as a Dartmouth alumna and TV creator. She offers practical, tongue-in-cheek advice alongside sincere counsel about self-confidence, supporting other women, and letting go of rigid life checklists. She shares a personal story about becoming a single mother and encourages graduates to ask 'why not me?' and root for themselves. InfographicSummaryVideoOfficial source 
Sheryl Sandberg Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sheryl Sandberg told MIT's class of 2018 that the most difficult problems and greatest opportunities are human rather than technical, drawing on her early work at a leprosy treatment center in India where community outreach, not just medicine, made the difference. She urged graduates to be 'clear-eyed optimists' who build technology supporting equality, democracy, and kindness while guarding against harm. She acknowledged Facebook's failures around user data and risks, saying owning mistakes helps prevent future ones, and called for inclusive workplaces free of harassment.
Photo: World Economic Forum / CC BY-SA 2.0 / source InfographicSummaryOfficial source .jpg){kind=link}
Chadwick Boseman Howard University InfographicVideoOfficial source Represented themes
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All 2018 addresses
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