Year
Class of 2022
Browse commencement speeches from 2022, including addresses by Reed Hastings, Reshma Saujani, and Taylor Swift. Each record links to the available source material, transcript, video, and archive context.
5 addresses 10 themes 5 highlights
Highlights from 2022
Records with stronger source signals, summaries, transcripts, videos, or visual archive material.
Reed Hastings Stanford University Reed Hastings tells Stanford's Class of 2022 that human progress is driven by two forces: inventions and stories. He urges graduates to apply inventive energy to climate change and to craft new, more constructive stories around equality and global interdependence to replace ones his generation failed to fully develop. He closes by encouraging graduates to embrace their own pace in life, whether they are 'hares' who succeed early or 'tortoises' who progress slowly. InfographicSummaryTranscriptVideoOfficial source 
Reshma Saujani Yale University Reshma Saujani, a Yale Law graduate and founder of Girls Who Code, delivered Yale's 2022 Class Day address, urging graduates to value advocacy and the American tradition of agitating for change. She reframed President Kennedy's famous call to service, arguing that in an era of declining trust in government and rising inequality, graduates should first ask what they can do for themselves and prioritize self-healing. She concluded that the country needs them to take care of one another and reimagine a world that better supports everyone. InfographicSummaryVideoOfficial source 
Taylor Swift New York University Taylor Swift addresses NYU's Class of 2022, reflecting on her unconventional path without a traditional college experience and the students' pandemic-disrupted education. She offers 'life hacks' rather than advice, encouraging graduates to let go of what weighs them down, embrace embarrassment and enthusiasm, and accept that mistakes and losses often lead to growth. She closes by acknowledging the uncertainty ahead and framing self-reliance as both scary and empowering. InfographicSummaryVideoOfficial source 
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Massachusetts Institute of Technology WTO Director-General and MIT alumna Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala reflects on her time at MIT and the lessons it taught her, framing the present era as a 'polycrisis' requiring the integration of science, social science, and policy. She argues that scientific innovation alone is insufficient without access, diffusion, and international cooperation, drawing on the COVID-19 vaccine response and climate change as examples of where science succeeded but policy failed. She shares examples from her own career bridging science and policy in international development, urging graduates to take risks, connect disconnected approaches, and use their education to serve others. InfographicSummaryOfficial source 
Kealoha Wong Massachusetts Institute of Technology InfographicOfficial source Represented themes
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