Every graduation season, we see some of the biggest names in popular culture giving inspiring college commencement speeches to light a fire under the new grads feet to go out and conquer the world. This year was no different. Here are some of the most inspiring college commencement speeches from 2018.
Ronan Farrow – college commencement speech
Loyola Marymount University college
[Photo: Getty Images]
Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow gave this eloquent commencement speech at LMU urging students to embrace failure: “You will face a moment in your career where you have absolutely no idea what to do,” he said. Adding “Where it will be totally unclear to you what the right thing is for you, for your family, for your community.
And I hope that in that moment you’ll be generous with yourself, but trust that inner voice. Because more than ever we need people to be guided by their own senses of principle—and not the whims of a culture that prizes ambition, and sensationalism, and celebrity, and vulgarity, and doing whatever it takes to win.
Because if enough of you listen to that voice—if enough of you prove that this generation isn’t going to make the same mistakes as the one before—then doing the right thing won’t seem as rare, or as hard, or as special. No pressure or anything.”
Oprah Winfrey – college commencement speech
USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
[Photo: Getty Images]
Oprah blessed the 2018 class of graduates of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism with these words of wisdom: “There will be some days that you just might be bored. Other days, you may not feel like going to work at all. Go anyway. And remember that your job is not who you are. It’s just what you’re doing on the way to who you will become.”
Chance the Rapper – college commencement speech
Dillard University
[Photo: Getty Images]
Chance the Rapper gave these inspiring words this year at Dillard University in New Oreleans: “Living up to your heroes is amazing, but it’s not good enough” Chance said. Adding, “Beyoncé had Mike. Mike didn’t have Mike. Mike had James Brown. James Brown had Cab Calloway. And so on and so on. Right now, the greatest performer who ever lived might be in this audience. And that person has something Beyoncé never had. They got Beyoncé. And so they have—you have—the greatest performance of all time; to watch it, to study it, to learn from it, But not to replicate it. To surpass it.”
David Sedaris – college commencement speech
Oberlin College Commencement Speech
[Photo: Getty Images]
Lastly, the amazing author and incredible whit, David Sedaris, had this piece of advice for Oberlin’s graduating class: “Be yourself. Unless ‘yourself’ is an assh*le.”
