Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “I Gave A Commencement Speech!”.
Hey, what’s up y’all MKBHD here bit of a different type of video this time so this year I was invited to give a commencement speech for the graduating class of 2024 for the school that I graduated from n years ago. Stevens’S Institute of Technology – and so I said yes and also I’ve – never given a commencement speech before and so I’m not particularly well practiced at this type of stuff, but figured I’d, give it a shot anyway. So I was told I was given 7 minutes for this. One and actually you’ll see, but I think I kind of nailed the seven minutes part.
But the topic that I chose was basically pointing your energy towards something that you care about a lot, and that makes it easy to dive in and really make a difference. In that thing, obviously, for me it’s it’s, you know these Tech videos, but these are graduates of a tech, school and a business school and all sorts of so they have a bright future ahead of them and also they were kind enough to give me an honorary Doctorate degree, while I was there so the running joke is like autoc, correct and all those Auto captions from years ago. It always say weird things: instead of MKBHD and one of them was MK PhD and now that feels kind of like foreshadowing, instead kind of prophetic impressive anyway, uh figured I’d share this in case it was inspirational to anyone who who’s young who is graduating.
Who is also in the right demographic to enjoy it so I’ll? Let it take it from here, so I’m told I have seven minutes to really make an impression on you guys. Um most of the videos are heavily edited and way longer than 7 minutes. So I’ll. Try to keep it concise here, so you can graduate, but first of all I I feel like I stand in front of you a little bit shocked at where we are because I feel like I was just there not that long ago, like a minute ago, I Was sitting here graduating from Stevens uh, but then I checked and it was N9 years ago so 2015, it’s like ancient history to you guys.
So they say time flies um. But when President forvard invited me to come back here and give the commencement speech to you all the class of 2024, the school that I graduated from, I’m obviously honored and excited – and maybe a little bit nervous, there’s a lot of people here but uh. I want to give you guys two things. I prepared two things for you, uh one is for now, and one is for later so I’ll start with the thing for now and uh, I’m going to start with a quote actually, so it goes like this uh. As a large language model, I cannot help with your request to write a commencement speech just kidding I’m kidding kidding.
I wrote this whole thing myself um. I thought you guys would like that, but I’m actually I’m actually going to start with a quote from an ultimate frisbee teammate. So I know that’s not the reason I’m here um, but a lot of you guys may know. I played Ultimate Frisbee when I went here at Stevens. I still play to this day and I remember really really early in my Ultimate Frisbee career sort of the beginning of freshman year, there’s a tryy out process and then the team was formed and I remember we went to our first tournament.
We were all in the Huddle before our first game as a team, and the captain said: hey guys, everybody take a Beat Just take a deep breath and just look around this huddle for a second like really appreciate this moment of becoming a team. For the first time, because you’re going to Blink and the whole season’s going to be over way faster than you think – and he was totally right – you know there’s. Obviously we play the game, there’s lots of long points and then lots of long weekends, of practices and travel and It’s a Grind. But we loved every second of it and we all evolved a lot as teammates and as players, and it was great. But at the end of the season we could all remember that first huddle.
We remembered that moment, uh of just taking a beat. So while I have the chance, I want to encourage you all sitting here with the the gowns and the hats and everything to just take a beat and look around at your fellow classmates and your your friends. People who you just spent a lot of time with your fam is here.
This is your day to celebrate and uh starting the next chapter of your life, but I also promise you that you’re going to Blink and it’s going to be 10 years later, so take a me minute to enjoy where you are now now for later. I give you that for now something for later uh here’s the thing I’ve always struggled with giving advice. I feel, like I don’t know if uh president farden knew that when he invited me to give a commencement speech, but I I feel like I get asked to give advice a lot and I don’t really know what to say. Typically, it’s like here are some things that I learned and I can pass them along to you, but I got to be honest.
I feel like a lot of My Success. You know was the the state of the world a niche capitalizing on Good Luck like there? There wasn’t really any Playbook or set of things that I strictly followed that I can pass along it kind of felt just like it was something that I I really dove into because it was exciting to me. So now I’m in this bizarre position of trying to give advice, but the more I’ve thought about it. The more I feel, like the best advice that I can give you is to find something that gets.
You excited that’s really what it comes down to so you’re you’re all sitting here today, because you’ve made it to the end of a very challenging process, called College uh, starting the next chapter of your lives and you’re armed with a bunch of tools that you picked Up along the way, you’re, basically at a launching pad, you just need somewhere to point that energy somewhere to dial it up all the way to 100, and so I really feel like my best advice for you is. This is the perfect time to take a minute and ask yourself those big questions like who am I like? What do I really want to do? What do I care about? How do I want to make an impact? How do I want to give back what makes you feel excited? What makes you feel nervous, you’ve already been challenged clearly and you’ve made a lot of tough choices. You’Ve had to learn new skills.
I went to Stevens. I know you had to solve problems in innovative ways. You had to work alone, you had to work in groups, you had to make time for things that are really challenging, so you have all these tools, but purpose is also a tool and to me I feel like it’s the most powerful one uh. It won’t necessarily be a smooth ride, finding what that is for you, some of you already sitting here like I know what it is. I know what I want to do, uh some of you.
It might take trying something it might be, taking a risk uh for some of you like me, it may be something that literally doesn’t exist yet, which is very exciting uh, but whatever it is, you decide to do. Making a dent in the universe is much easier when you care deeply about that part of the universe. So for me it was Tech videos on the internet, but for all of you, the sky is the limit. Clearly so I’ll end with this uh graduation is an exciting time.
It’S also a great word graduation. It’S also a great album uh, but you actually you graduate many times as a person. I think you continue to level up and and build and graduate over and over again yourself. I mean you obviously wow you obviously uh already had high school graduation you’re having for many of you.
This is your your formal education graduation, but you might also have your first job graduation or your second job, graduation or learning a new skill, graduation or overcoming a new fear. Graduation or maybe you talk to someone and – and you get inspired and absorb some information that unlocks a new part of your brain – that’s another graduation, right, there so class of 2024. I wish you many more graduations. This certainly will not be the last one congrats on getting to this launching pad and from one duck to another congrats and good luck.
Thank you. .