大学励志英语演讲稿范文（通用29篇）
About the common stuff about entrepreneurship, I'd read too much from books and talks. So, I'm going to share my own opinion. Something special, I think.
At the beginning of the talk, he told that he's really intense because it is his first time to present in front of a crowd of academics. He suggested the students should complete the academic study, and don't give up.
If I had the chance to take all the wealth and so called fame and glory that I have right now, and buy back 15 years of life, but keep the knowledge that I have now, and relive the physique I had 15 years ago and trade places with you right now, I would make that trade in a heartbeat.
God willing, none of you will face at any age the kind of dangers and fears that Fred and Tyler did. But they, and so many others like them, have left us all a legacy that provides perspective and proportion for those inevitable moments when the pressures and disappointments of life get us down.
Don’t misunderstand this, but I wish for you many such tough moments. You can easily avoid them; just lead a safely inconsequential life: run no risks, confront no injustice, accept no roles of leadership. But that’s not the path we expect you to choose. You are about to become graduates of Purdue University, which, throughout its history, has supplied leaders to a world that needs them now as rarely before.
Long after you leave us, your senior year will be remembered as the year of Tyler Trent. His is a story I need not recount; everyone here knows who he was, and how he faced a situation for which words like “adversity” and “stress” don’t come close. He impacted more people, and left deeper footprints, than most who will enjoy lives several times longer than his. We’ll never forget you, Tyler.
My mother was right – because you will encounter difficult times in your life, requiring tough decisions and tough time-sensitive responses.
My first taste of adversity came in 1969, when I helped to integrate a private school in my home city of Atlanta. I was a handful of…I was one of a handful of African-American students – student of color8– who passed the entrance exam and was admitted to attend. Now while passing the exam was the technical requirement for admission and acceptance, it was not the path to acceptance from my peers. In fact, from 7th grade to 12th grade, I endured being called the N-word at least once a day.
It was tough to get through a single day, let alone come back and repeat the entire process all over again. I can recall that I told my mother I didn’t want to go to school there anymore; the challenges were just too much. And she would repeat the washing machine adage to me more times than I can count.
Good evening. Thank you. One year ago, I introduced my father when he declared his candidacy. In his own way, and through his own sheer force of will, he sacrificed greatly to enter the political arena as an outsider.
And he prevailed against afield of 16 very talented competitors. For more than a year, Donald Trump has been the people’s champion, and tonight he’s the people’s nominee. Like many of my fellow millenials, I do not consider myself categorically Republican or Democrat. More than party affiliation, I vote on based on what I believe is right, for my family and for my country. Sometimes it’s a tough choice. That is not the case this time. As the proud daughter of your nominee, I am here to tell you that this is the moment and Donald Trump is the person to make America great again.
english is a useful language all over the world. why are we began to learn english when we were little children beacause it is very important for us to learn it.in the world, if you cannot speak english you will lose half a chance to success. i began to learn english when i was 8 years old.at that moment,i do not like english.i connot remember all the words which i have learnt.i think it is very difficult for me to learn it well.so i cannot read english loudly and i never answer the questions in the english classes.
now, i like english very well and i still use the ways he tells me.i know i must learn english even hard.
is this working? ok. great. thank you for sharingthe stage with me today. i must apologize in advance for my voice.my voice keeps going in and out. a little bit of laryngitis on theroad. i'm so delighted to be here this afternoon. as the ministrydo for the small business administration. we will celebrate our65th anniversary next year. we are kicking off this year ofreimagining the sba. we might even cheat a little bit. nationals not -- small business week year. because, i found out about the second week i was in office sba is one of the best-kept secrets in the country. you think sba, what do you think? so much more than loans. it's counseling. access to capital, which businesses need to start. cash is king. then i found out that the counselingand mentoring aspect that comes along is as important oralmost as important as the cash. we have components of access,government contracting, which grows many small as mrs.. then we have disaster relief. what happens when a disaster hits an area? homes are lost. it's one of the few times sba is involved in the home mortgage market as well as business loans. it's our goal to give businesses up and running. they are not only the engine of our economy, but they are the glue for theircommunities. those communities need to come back online. sba isthere working with fema, the first people on the line. we want to get everybody back up, paying taxes. it is an all-encompassingorganization. it's my goal to make sure a year from now, if notsooner, sba is no longer a secret. [applause]
thank you. have great champions of the smallbusiness community along with president trump. we want to hear from the community. if you have a question, please raise yourhand. you can ask a question to the administrator or ivanka.
i'm a firefighter from wisconsin. i have been a firefighter for 20 years. i recently invented a new style of compass to save firefighters lives. what i'm struggling with is the ins and outs to run that business. what advice do you have to get over that hurdle?
I can't even notice that the men's hands are still raised, and the women's hands are still raised, how good are we as managers of our companies and our organizations at seeing that the men are reaching for opportunitiesmore than women?" We've got to get women to sit at the table.Message number two: Make your partner a real partner. I've become convinced that we've made more progress in the workforce than we have in the home. The data shows this very clearly. If a woman and a man work full-time and have a child, the woman does twice the amount of housework the man does, and the woman does three times the amount of childcare the man does. So she's got three jobs or two jobs, and he's got one. Who do you think drops out when someone needs to be home more? The causes of this are really complicated, and I don't have time to go into them. And I don't think Sunday football-watching and general laziness is the cause.
Thank you very much, Margaret, for that very generous introduction.
First, let me say congratulations to our graduates. Welcome back to our alumni. Good afternoon to everyone – colleagues and friends, and family members, loved ones, and our most special guest – our eminent speaker. It’s a pleasure to address you this afternoon and to offer a few reflections as I approach the end of my first year as president.
I realize, however, that I’m literally the last thing standing between you and the speech that you’ve all actually come here to hear. So, while I can’t promise to be mesmerizingly eloquent, I can at least promise to be mercifully brief.
We gather this afternoon buoyed by the aspirations of our graduates – some 7,100 people who have distinguished themselves in nearly every field and every discipline imaginable. We welcome them into the venerable ranks of our alumni, and we send them forth into a world that is very much in need of both their minds and their hearts.
Last December, we said goodbye to a great man. A great man, but a typical Boilermaker. In his 94 years, Fred Fehsenfeld built a series of businesses that employed and enriched thousands of people around Indiana and the world. A model for what we now call lifelong learning, he was always on top of the latest technology, always conceiving large new projects and looking far into a future he could not possibly live to see. And modest about his achievements every step of the way.
He almost didn’t get the chance to do any of that. On his 18th birthday, in 1942, he left his freshman dorm room in Cary Hall and enlisted in the Army. He flew 86 missions over Europe with a storied unit in which almost half his fellow pilots were killed in action.
In an oral history of his experiences, Fred told of his first close-air dogfight combat. He was low to the ground, with bullets everywhere, and death perhaps an instant away. The interviewer asked, “What were you thinking at a moment like that?” Fred answered, “I was thinking, I finally got a chance to make some German pay for yanking me out of Purdue University.” He survived the war, came back, still younger than most of you, to finish his M.E. degree and lead a life of epic accomplishment.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
we all want the future to be better than the past. but the future can go better itself. dont cry because it is over, smile because it happened. from the past, weve learnt that the life is tough, but we are tougher. weve learnt that we cant choose how we feel, but we can choose what about it. failure doesnt mean you dont have it, it does mean you should do it in a different way. failure doesnt mean you should give up, it does mean you must try harder.
as what i said at the beginning, “we are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book, whose pages are infinite”. the past has gone. nothing we do will change it. but the future is in front of us. believe that what we give to the world, the world will give to us. and from today on, lets be the owners of ourselves, and speak out “we are the world, we are the future.”
i started a company called blueblood. this is for you. i created an online marketplace for professional truck drivers when they are in need of work to match with a motor carrier who needs a driver. we are just rolling out. my concern is the regulations. my concern is for all industries, what can we do with the regulationissued to help us through these phases?
you heard the president when he started off. he has rolled back already so many regulations to make it possible to move forward. he was only less than a dozen days in office when the executive order stated for every new regulation you want tocreate you've got to get rid of 2. i think that is bringing down theregulatory environment. i feel -- i hear the same message when i'mtouring the country. i'm visiting every district office. there's 68 of them. i hold business roundtables. the regulatoryenvironment is clearly one that is crippling a lot of small businesses as well as large businesses. i believe that it is a trillion dollars a year a cost for all businesses to comply with regulations. that is a time of money. a little example, just now i was in portland and seattle, and alaska. then i came back tomilwaukee. when i was at a small brewery, the owner said theregulations that bothers him, let me give you one example. he saidi want to launch a new beer. we had the body in the formula. hesent in the label and it was kicked back. the label was wrong. we resubmitted. it kicked back again. i finally found out it was a,missing in the text on the label of the description of the product. we were delayed six months launching our product. you are a small business person trying to reclaim that six months.those regulations we don't need.
one day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of chile, in one of the most remote regions of the pacific ocean, 20 american sailors watched their ship flood with seawater. heyd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ships hull. as their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together inthree small whaleboats.these men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. in their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.these were the men of the whaleship essex, whose story would later inspire parts of moby dick.we know how fear feels, but im not sure we spend enough time thinking about what our fears mean.as we grow up, were often encouraged to think of fear as a weakness, just another childish thing to discard like baby teeth or roller skates.
I know no women, whether they're at home or whether they're in the workforce,who don't feel that sometimes. So I'm not saying that staying in the workforce is the right thing for everyone.My talk today is about what the messages are if you do want to stay in the workforce, and I think there are three. One, sit at the table. Two, make your partner a real partner. And three, don't leave before you leave. Number one: sit at the table. Just a couple weeks ago at Facebook, we hosted a very senior government official, and he came in to meet with senior execs from around Silicon Valley. And everyone kind of sat at the table. He had these two women who were traveling with him pretty senior in his department, and I kind of said to them, "Sit at the table. Come on, sit at the table," and they sat on the side of the room. When I was in college, my senior year, I took a course called European Intellectual History. Don't you love that kind of thing from college?
Toastmaster of the day, fellow toastmasters, awonderful afternoon to all of you. My name is Jeff. Today I want to share withyou part of my life experiences and I hope some of you will find it useful.
March 15, 20xx, Xiamen, China. My phone rang the moment when I stepped into themain entrance of our condominium. It was my 68-year-old mum. She said, “your dad and I are now at the boarding gate, but we couldn’t find your dad’s bag, which contains his IC and a few thousand dollars”. Just 35 minutes back, I saw my dadand mum off at the airport. They were about to board a domestic flight toPudong where they would join my sister to fly to Toronto and stay there for another one year. A couple of days before that, I purposely went back to Xiamen, my hometown to see my parents off. I asked my parents to board the airplane first and I would make a second trip to airport and fetch my dad’s bag home. We were so fortunate that my mum kept the passports of both in her handbag.I quickly called the airport and got to the team in charge of security check.They found the bag and verified my identity.
my name is richard daphne. i have over 30 years in different sizebusinesses, with many ups and downs. my question is for ivanka.what do you feel has been your biggest challenge, most exciting success? mrs.
as an entrepreneur you try to balance yourown time, energy, focus, especially when you think big. you sometimes have to slow yourself down. so, to not -- to impose thediscipline on yourself to enable you to achieve the growth youwant, especially in the early days, you have limited people. you arejust launching a product or a service. you hopefully feel thatearly momentum. when you are an entrepreneur you have to be a visionary. we also have to be an secured her. successfulentrepreneurs are both. they dream big. they think big. they also are highly pragmatic, able to execute at the task at hand.sometimes there is an imbalance. i think for anyone to besuccessful, they have to reconcile those things. ultimately we were talking about it, in terms of recruitment, you are as good as your people. investing in your teams, your employees, making sureyou have cultivated a group that complements you, that pushesyou , that will enable you to succeed. for me, success that is scaled and done tremendously well is because they have a great team and great people.
thank you for doing this work today. we are a marketing publicengagement firm. we are a serviced a bold veteran small business. we have been based in northern virginia for many years. virginia is the number one state for veteran owned businesses. our right to pursue the american dream is something i hold dear to my heart.i'm curious, i'm sure you have had the opportunity to meet greatentrepreneurs. is there one story that is the most inspirational story?
it is been incredible to hear so many stories.during the two years prior campaigning, traveling around the country. one of the unique things about this experience, my father was running for president. people would come up to youwherever you were and tell you their stories. with suchtremendous detail, and tell you of their hardest challenges, and share with you things in a way they neither -- never would have.they would never open themselves up to you in the same way theydo during the process of a campaign. now today, being part of this administration. i feel blessed for the candor in which people share their ideas and personal stories. linda and i were together in baltimore just days after the inauguration. we did a roundtable with small business owners, predominantly female, hosted by the national urban league. one of those women who actually i brought her to the white house a few months later is named lisa phillips. she had a small's ness. she told me her storyand i think -- we were all crying. it was so amazing. she started out homeless. she is now engaged. this spring she got her mastersdegree. she has a small but thriving small business and party planning. she is volunteering with homeless youth in baltimore. so this is -- these types of stories forever change you. it is unbelievable to hear the purser variants, the grant, the energy. i know she is going to make an enormous impact not just in her business but her community. we talk about small business, how it is going to grow our economy and benefit american workers, butthe amount of philanthropy being done on the local level by small business is a norm is enormous. i'm sure each of you can share your own stories just about how you are able to give act and you do in such a tremendous way. lisa story was moving to me.
we should learn to stick to our life no matter how difficult the life is and we should learn to love others .it is the flim tellsx me .
it is a story talks about a black girl named precious .precious isx fat and not beautiful. her bad temped mother never workx, always cheated others to relieve her ,and atex while watching tv all day.what is worse ,precious was only 16,but she had pregnant for twice .out of assumption ,her child is her farther
a poet said “to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour. several days ago, i had a chance to listen to a lecture. i learnt a lot there. id like to share it with all of you. lets show our right palms. we can see three lines that show how our love.career and life is. i have a short line of life. what about yours i wondered whether we could see our future in this way. well, lets make a fist. where is our future where is our love, career, and life tell me.yeah, it is in our hands. it is held in ourselves.
hello, ladies and gentlemen. im ms liu, liu xiaoyu. i’m from hanyuan traffic and hope primary school. my topic is “please be my pen friend!”
there are five members in my family: my grandpa, my grandma, father, mother and me. they love me and i love them too. my father and mother work very hard everyday. so i often help my mother to clean the room. and i always wash the dishes when i finish eating. my grandpa and grandma like watching tv. sometimes they tell me lots of interesting stories. if you’re my pen friend, you’lllike these stories. after i finish my homework, i often dance.
my hobby is dancing, just like this.... i hope my pen friend like dancing too. and we can dance together. i also like drawing, just like this ?. look! a beautiful princess. if youre my pen friend, i’ll draw a picture for you.
my favorite animal is rabbit. because she is very cute and smart. i have a pet rabbit. i love it very much. everyday i feed it and play with it. she is my good friends. i always sing songs for her: .... if you’re my pen friend, you can also like her. i can write emails in english and chinese. sometimes, i can also write to my family in chinese. i want to be your pen friend. do you like me? please be my pen friend. that’s all, thank you!
After three days of self-pity, my perspective changed. I realized there were more ways to serve my fellow citizens and my city than just being in elective office.
But the lesson became crystal clear several roles into the future. And graduates, here’s the lesson:
Failure’s not fatal. It’s feedback.
Did you hear me? Put that in your phones. Failure is not fatal. It’s feedback.
I wasn’t supposed to be the Mayor. Had I been the Mayor, I would not have been available to work as a senior officer at the Coca-Cola company where my maternal grandparents had worked for a combined 45 years – jobs that enabled my mother and her sister to be ‘first generation college graduates’.
Nor would I perhaps have been on the radar to become a trustee here at Duke, alongside my good friend and fellow Dukie, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Ya’ll know who that is? That’s a bad boy.
And had I not met Adam, I may never have been a candidate for the President of the WNBA, the Women’s National Basketball Association, somebody say amen, one of the most rewarding roles that I have ever undertaken.
Good morning,ladies and gentlemen,today i am so happy to stand here to give you arather, a real story of mine.
Though with time going by,i can still remember what you once toldshould be a brave ,you looked into myin,year out,nearly most of my memories are fading little byonly this simple sentence remained,without being forgotten in my life.
Again and again,i can not stop myself from thinking aboutordinary,but so impressive,so moving,just like the brightest sunshine,it helps me go through the darkestam such a sensitive girl in yoursaid,my sorroful facial expression made feel so ,there is one thing i never tell you,that is ,i am becoming a big girl gradually with your words andnever tell you about it,for i believe oneday,you can see the great changes of mine foris what i want to do ini know,that will be the best gift for you.
I suddenly think of a song named MY HEART WILL GOis a beautiful sentence going likeare safe in mythan once,i was moved to tears byknow ,i am also safe in yourhave already forgotten when i told you i was going to leave for Australia this summerjust smiled as usual,gentlyyou decide to do,i will be in favor of it,but, just onething,remember,when you fell lonely abroad,do not forget we are here ,praying forare all around you,far across the distance and space betweenclosed my eyes,the flashbackmemories we had together,once we played games on the palyground,we played jokes on each other,you always wrote a lot of sentences on my articles to encouragethe most unforgetable thing,you told me,you believed m i could be a bigor later.
At that specific moment,i suddenly understood the meaning of this sentenceon that day,i smiled as you used to,looking atlast words i said were,keep walking in sunshine.
Yes,keep walking insaid to you ,also toknow i am not alone wiht your company,and we can keep walking in sunshine till the last minute of our days.
I promise,i will be a big girl.
I promise,i will be a brave girl.
I promise,i will keep walking in sunshine.
That is my speech,thank you!
Several months ago, the Trump Administration instructed the Department of Education to prioritize STEM education, especially computer science, in our schools. The guidance we offered directed that these programs be designed with gender and racial diversity in mind.
At the direction of the President, I have worked closely with leadership across government Agencies to prioritize workforce development and proven on-the-job training programs like apprenticeships so that young women – and men – have more opportunities to earn while they learn, provide for their families, and master the skills that drive progress in the 21st century.
Finally, we must empower women who live in countries that prevent them from leading.
Across the world, there are still laws that stop women from fully participating in their nation’s economy.
In some countries, women are not allowed to own property, travel freely, or work outside of the home without the consent of their husbands.
Countries like the United States and Japan cannot be complacent. We must continue to champion reforms in our own countries while also empowering women in restricted economies.
I love drama performance very much; it makes me active to try something different.
As a member of drama club, I played different roles in different dramas, such as a doctor, a team leader and some animals. I really enjoyed those different experiences by understanding their inner world and imitating their voices and behaviors.Gradually I became more and more active to try different things.
So…I chose a bad wolf as my next role which is quite different from previous ones. It looks like this: (Knock, knock)" Come in please.” ”Grandma, what big eyes you have?” ” All the better to see you with.” ”But, what a large mouth you have?” ” All the better to eat you with! Haw-haw…”
Hope you like it, thank you!
good morning,dear teacher and my friends.
its a very intresting topic today.
i think my dad was a hero for me when i was a young child. wed go fishing, walks, and other fun things for a kid.
every child has a good and great father, and so do i. my dad played a very important role in my daily life`````exactly speaking, in my past 16 years.
my family was rather poor when i was in my childhood. we didnt have our own house and had to live in a shabby， small room rented from my fathers factory. the room was so small that there was little space for people to walk. i didnt have my own bed and had to sleep with my parents. this is terrible both for my parents and me.
but father made this all different!he works very hard on his own business, now we have our own 2 housese,surly,i have my own room.and he take our family so much happiness, richer and richer.
when i was little, i did everything with my dad. you could always find me sitting on his knee or walking and doing everything with him. every night he would read me a bed time story and make the voices of each character.
i learnt a lot from my daddy. i learnt to never take things to seriously and to always smile.
years pasted, my father is over 45 now. it is time for me to look after him and i am sure i will do and we will live an even better life. and i will say,i really love you dad,cause you are the hero in my mind.
thank you so much!
I want to start out by saying, I talk about this — about keeping women in the workforce — because I really think that's the answer. In the high-income part of our workforce, in the people who end up at the top — Fortune 500 CEO jobs, or the equivalent in other industries — the problem, I am convinced, is that women are dropping out. Now people talk about this a lot, and they talk about things like flextime and mentoring and programs companies should have to train women. I want to talk about none of that today, even though that's all really important. Today I want to focus on what we can do as individuals. What are the messages we need to tell ourselves? What are the messages we tell the women that work with and for us? What are the messages we tell our daughters?Now, at the outset, I want to be very clear that this speech comes with no judgments. I don't have the right answer. I don't even have it for myself. I left San Francisco, where I live, on Monday, and I was getting on the plane for this conference. And my daughter, who's three, when I dropped her off at preschool, did that whole hugging-the-leg, crying, "Mommy, don't get on the plane" thing. This is hard. I feel guilty sometimes.
almost everyone knows the famous chinese saying：a young idler，an old beggar.
throughout history，we have seen many cases in which this saying has again and again
proved to be true.
it goes without saying that the youth is the best time of life，during which ones
mental and physical states are at their peaks. it takes relatively less time and pains
to learn or accept new things in a world full of changes and rapid developments. in
addition，one is less likely to be under great pressure from career，family and health
problems when young. therefore，a fresh mind plus enormous energy will ensure success
in different aspects of life. of course，we all know：no pains，no gains. if we dont make every effort to make
good use of the advantages youth brings us，it is impossible to achieve any goals.
as students，we should now try our best to learn all the subjects well so that we
can be well prepared for the challenges that we will face in the future.
you will no longer fear making new sounds, showing new facial expressions, using your body in new ways,approaching new people, and asking new questions. you will live every single day of your life with absolute passion, and you will show your passion through the words you speak and the actions you take. you will focus all your time and effort on the most important goals of your life. you will never succumb to challenges of hardships. you will never waver in your pursuit of excellence. after all,you are the best, and you deserve the best!
as your coach and friend, i can assure you the door to all the best things in the world will open to you, but the key to that door is in your hand. you must do your part, you must faithfully follow the plans you make and take the actions you plan, you must never quit, you must never fear. i know you must do it, you can do it, you will do it, and you will succeed!
I am for the robust and free exchange of ideas, as essential to the mission of a great university as it is to the health of our democracy.
I am for a world where we welcome the immigrant, the poor, and the forgotten; we did [do] not shut them out or silence them; a world where showing empathy and understanding is considered the true hallmark of success, of a life well-lived.
That is what I am for.
Yale’s mission says, in part, that we are “committed to improving the world today and for future generations.” That commitment does not end at graduation.
Soon you will leave Yale and, as Robert Penn Warren, who studied and taught at Yale, wrote, “You will go into the convulsion of the world, out of history and into history.”
Indeed, you’ll go into history and make history.
i started my journey in california with a uc berkley 30-year
longitudinal study that examined the photos of students in an old yearbook and tried to measure their success and well-being throughout their life. by measuring their student smiles, researchers were able to predict how fulfilling and long-lasting a subjects marriage will be, how well she would score on standardized tests of well-being and how inspiring she would be to others. in another yearbook, i stumbledupon barry obamas picture. when i first saw his picture, i thought that these superpowers came from his super collar. but now i know it was all in his smile. nother aha! moment came from a 20xx wayne state university research project that looked into pre-1950s baseball cards of major league players. the researchers found that the span of a players smile could actually predict the span of his life. players who didnt smile in their pictures lived an average of only years, where players with beaming smiles lived an average of almost 80 years.
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.