(logo chiming)
- Congratulations to
you the class of 2020.
In what is certainly
the most extraordinary
send off of my 30 years at Stanford.
These flowers are not just a fake
Zoom background, by the way.
I can't tell you how
often in my role as Dean,
I appreciate the fact that the
School of Engineering is full of,
well, engineers, engineers
are problem solvers.
They're collaborative, optimistic,
and they get things done.
those traits will serve you especially
well in the coming months and years.
I feel confident that
whatever path you choose,
you will make Stanford proud,
as you put your
engineering mindset to work
and helping the world
recover and grow stronger.
Go to it, and congratulations again.
- Hi, everyone, and congratulations on
your graduation after what I'm sure
has been a lot of hard work.
Hopefully some fun, and perhaps
some hard lessons learned.
This is an unusual year to
graduate in the middle of a pandemic,
which is the most disruptive global
event in all of our lives.
There will be three phases, a crisis,
a pause, and a restart.
We're in the middle of a health crisis,
turning into an economic crisis.
That may make it difficult for some
of you to get the kind of jobs you'd
hoped for, or to pursue your careers
but we will have an economic recovery.
During this pause, which really isn't
what any of us would have wanted.
This is a good time to reflect.
You could ask yourself,
what's important to me?
What am I grateful for?
What would I like to achieve?
And how can I make a difference?
As we come into the
restart, after the pause,
this is your opportunity.
So please take advantage of
the chance to rebuild the world
in the way that you want, please be bold,
be thoughtful, be yourself, do
good, and make a difference.
Congratulations.
- Class of 2020.
I'm Professor Fei-Fei Li,
from the bottom of my heart.
Congratulations, you have
accomplished a tremendous amount,
especially in this very,
very challenging times.
We're so proud of what you have done
during your time here at Stanford.
And more importantly, we're so
proud that you will now leave
Stanford to contribute to the world
by applying what you have learned.
We send you our very best wishes
as you embark on this journey.
And I really hope that no
matter what you do next,
that you keep in mind with
a human centered mindset,
technology should be used and can be used
to better human lives,
human work and the world.
We love you all, Congratulations.
- Dear graduates, I wish I could be there
in person to congratulate
each and every one of you.
You're part of a uniquely
talented group of individuals
and I'm grateful for my interactions
with many of you over the years.
Please take a pause to
celebrate your achievement,
and perhaps also to contemplate.
What did you learn about yourself
in your years at Stanford?
Which ideas are staying with you
from this sweet intellectual environment?
which personal connections
will endure for life?
I hope all of these will help
prepare you to the next
chapters of your lives,
where you will surely continue to be
a strong positive force
for your communities.
Congratulations.
- Congratulations.
Your Stanford journey has prepared
you well for life beyond the farm.
I know you're ready to
take on any challenge.
Believe in yourself, dream big,
and go seize those opportunities.
I'm confident that I
will hear amazing things
about your accomplishments
in the years to come.
I know that our future is
in good hands, your hands.
Congratulations again.
- As many have said,
this is not the ending
that you expected or earned
of your Stanford degree.
But you're here, you made it.
And Stanford is great
because of its people,
and that means it's great because of you.
And as you enter into this
challenging new world,
remember something from
my sub-field of Artificial
Intelligence, which is that optimism under
uncertainty can be provably optimal.
So go forth, you got this.
- Congratulations, CS class of 2020.
Even though we can't
do a live commencement,
I'm thrilled that we can
at least do a virtual one.
Go forth and change the world.
If I can give you just
one piece of advice,
remember that we're in a
very fast moving field.
So never stop learning.
Every week, ask yourself what new thing
did I learn this week.
And if nothing comes to mind,
go to the internet and learn
something new that day.
Stay safe, write secure code, and do good.
Congratulations, class of 2020.
- Congratulations, class of 2020.
We're all very proud of
you, when I graduated,
somebody gave me a poem
which I kept in my wallet,
and what ended up being a very
formative moment in my life.
And so as you graduate, I just wanna
share a little bit from that Poem,
"Desiderata" by Max
Ehrmann, it ends like this.
"Be yourself.
"Especially do not feign affection.
"Neither be cynical about love.
"For in the face of all
aridity and disenchantment
"Is perennial as the grass.
"Be at peace with the universe
"Whatever you conceive it to be.
"And whatever your labors and aspirations,
In the noisy confusion of life,
"Keep peace in your soul.
"With all its sham,
drudgery and broken dreams
"It is still a beautiful world."
The world is changing quickly,
but you've chosen a
discipline that can change
with fortunes of time.
Now more than ever, I
challenge you to think about
how you can use the
tools that you've learned
in order to build towards
the more beautiful
and wholesome world that you can imagine.
Thanks for everything class
of 2020 congratulations.
- Hello class of 2020.
If you've taken CS 161
Algorithms in the past few years,
you might remember Plucky
the Pedantic Penguin
and Lucky the Lackadaisical Lemur.
if you haven't taken algorithms
in the past few years,
or if you just blocked it out,
Plucky and Lucky show up in
the CS 161 course materials.
In the context of algorithms,
they represent the interplay
between rigor and intuition.
Plucky dives deep and pays
attention to the details,
while Lucky focuses on the bigger picture.
Obviously, I think that Plucky and Lucky
have an important message for algorithms
otherwise I wouldn't
include them in my class.
But as I was thinking about
what to say to you today,
I realized I think the Plucky and Lucky
also have an important message for life.
So as you graduate from Stanford
and move on to the next
exciting chapter in your life,
I wanna channel Plucky and Lucky
and say that I hope that
you find the right balance
in your own life, between
channeling Plucky diving deep
and channeling Lucky never losing sight
of the bigger picture.
Congratulations, class of 2020.
- Congratulations, CS class of 2020.
We're really proud of your accomplishment
and reaching this milestone for graduation
on your educational journey.
Now, as one of the faculty members
who saw the amount of work you did,
the problem sets, the
project, everything you did
to help you get to this
point of graduation.
You have my deep respect,
I know you did a lot and you
have a lot to be proud of.
Now in terms of the next
steps of your journey
whether that be getting a job,
taking some well deserved time off,
or perhaps even coming
back for another round
on the Co-Terminal Program,
I wish you the best.
It's been an honor and a
privilege to be able to teach you
and to see your growth
during this time at Stanford.
Congratulations and best
wishes for the future.
- Congratulations class of 2020.
So I wish we could be
together on campus for this
but please know that as long
as those of us who remember
teaching each of you
come to campus each day,
we bring those memories with us.
As of today, you are
officially Computer Scientists.
But I wanna ask you to
be teachers as well.
If someone on this campus
treated your questions
and confusion with kindness and dignity
pay that forward for each new member
of the teams that you work on, for anyone
who could benefit from the
knowledge that you have.
Don't hoard anything, but
especially don't hoard
the power of the knowledge
you have learned here.
Again, all my congratulations.
(soft music)
