00:00Hello classmates, professors, families, and ICE agents who saw the name Hamza Masood on
00:07the program and figured they'd score an easy arrest.
00:13Please rise for a recitation from the Holy Quran.
00:19Last night I was having trouble falling asleep.
00:23At first I thought it was because of the noise, since my bed is located in the middle of the
00:27Elliott construction site.
00:30But then I realized that I've slept through much worse, like the entirety of CS50.
00:36No it was not noise keeping me up, but a nagging feeling of unfinished business.
00:42Suddenly it hit me.
00:43I had spent four years at Harvard and yet had not completed a single one of its sacred traditions.
00:50And so, like Amanda Claybaugh, after seeing too many smiling econ concentrators, I decided
00:58that something had to change.
01:01I tore off my covers, leapt out of bed, and proceeded in record time to complete the Holy
01:06Trinity of Harvard traditions.
01:08I jumped into the Widener stacks, peed in the Charles River, and made tender love to
01:15the John Harvard statue.
01:19Alas, not even the loving caresses of John Harvard could shake me out of my funk.
01:24I realized then that my sleeplessness was due to something deeper.
01:29A profound sense of regret for all the things I could have done at Harvard, but didn't.
01:35I am sure many of you feel the same way.
01:38There is so much to do here that at any given moment, it is impossible not to miss out on
01:43something cool.
01:45And at the end of four years, the list of things you missed out on is longer than the list
01:50of
01:50lazy teaching fellows who haven't yet submitted our grades because they're on strike.
01:56You could have gotten brownies at Lowell Tea, or you could have gotten pink-eye at Mather-Lather.
02:02You could have gone camping with the outing club, or you could have gone camping with
02:06the Palestine Solidarity Committee.
02:09You could have walked onto the football team, or you could have walked onto a team that actually
02:13won something.
02:16And then there were the wondrous educational offerings.
02:18You could have studied physics if you wanted to unlock the secrets of the universe.
02:24You could have studied computer science if you wanted to be replaced by clawed code.
02:29Or you could have studied folklore and mythology if you wanted to have cool stories to tell
02:34the computer science guy while you're both waiting in the unemployment line.
02:39At Harvard, you could have sought the answer to every question that ever crossed your mind.
02:45If you were confused about what a novel is, you could have taken a class called, what is
02:49a novel?
02:50And if you were still confused, you could have taken a different class called, what is a book?
02:56These are both real courses.
02:59Parents, if that isn't worth $86,000 a year, then what is?
03:06Don't even get me started on all the learning opportunities that were waiting for us outside
03:12the classroom.
03:13Psychology concentrators could have studied Stockholm Syndrome by talking to people who insist
03:18they loved the quad.
03:20Biology concentrators could have observed natural selection up close by watching the
03:26Crimson Key comp.
03:28And classic concentrators could have understood the pain, the lived experience of Sisyphus
03:34by trying to fit a lid on a Hud's coffee cup.
03:38So much to do, so little time.
03:41Thus, this feeling of regret, of loss, of opportunities for gone and roads not taken is one that we're
03:49used to by now.
03:50For me, it started in freshman year.
03:52I was constantly worried about missing out and about losing things.
03:56Do I have my lanyard, keys, wallet, virginity?
04:00Phew!
04:00Phew!
04:01They're all there.
04:04To this day, I have not lost one.
04:09So as I lay in my twin XL bed, staring at the stars, feeling regret for all the things
04:15I didn't do at Harvard, I began to ask myself the big questions.
04:20Is there a God?
04:23Is his name Kit Kettle?
04:26Why would they put grapes on pizza?
04:29What is a book?
04:31And perhaps the biggest question of all, what is the point of Harvard?
04:37The answer, of course, is to get a job at Goldman Sachs.
04:41But for those of us who never went to Exeter, Andover, or drop-in advising hours at the Mignone
04:47Center for Career Success, there is also a secondary, less important purpose to our time here.
04:53Some of you might think it's to get on the side chat leaderboard.
04:56Wrong.
04:57Others might think it's to get on the face mash leaderboard.
05:01Closer, but also wrong.
05:04If you paid close attention, you would know that Harvard told us its purpose from the beginning.
05:11Veritones.
05:13Sorry, I'm reading from the spring a cappella jam schedule.
05:17I mean Veritas.
05:19Truth.
05:20Truth.
05:21Despite Veritas being Harvard's motto, we spent a good part of our time here avoiding it.
05:26To be a Harvard student is to tell a lot of lies.
05:31We lied to our Section TFs about doing the readings.
05:34We lied to our weird freshman year roommate that there wasn't any space left in our five-person
05:39blocking group.
05:41And if you were that weird roommate, you lied and said, I actually do have a blocking group.
05:46They just go to a different school.
05:49Why then, at a place dedicated to finding the truth, did we so often try to hide from it?
05:54Well, I think that in a lot of cases, we hid from the truth because, much like the chairs
06:00you're sitting on now, it was uncomfortable.
06:04Sometimes the uncomfortable truth was that we were not as advanced as our peers.
06:08I remember how behind I felt when I moved into Wigglesworth freshman year and found that
06:14all four of my suite mates were already running for senior class Marshall.
06:19Other times, the uncomfortable truth was that our peers kind of sucked.
06:24I don't think any of us will forget the day HRO was suspended for brutally waterboarding
06:2912 freshmen during their initiation.
06:33Nor could we hide our shame when we learned that the one woman allowed at meetings of the
06:38John Adams Society was actually a mop with a smiley face taped to it.
06:44Yet, while the truth could be uncomfortable, when we pushed past the discomfort, we started
06:50to become the people we were meant to be.
06:53When some of you were rejected by HCCG, you became proud members of CBE.
06:59When others of you got frame-mogged by the John Harvard statue, you started going to the
07:04MAC.
07:06And when I realized I was too dumb to study pure math, I became the first person in history
07:11to triple concentrate in history and literature, history and science, and history and history.
07:17I invite you all to read my honors thesis on the surprising interconnections between Jane
07:21Austin, Special Relativity, and the Battle of the Bulge.
07:26My point is that Harvard taught us to treat the truth like the opposite of the faux-ho flasher.
07:32We must embrace it.
07:36So, in the spirit of Veritas, I want to leave you with the three most important truths I
07:42have learned at this incredible institution.
07:45The first truth is that change is inevitable.
07:50While we were here, we saw falls turn into winters, winters turn into springs, springs turn
07:55into summers, and summers turn into a former university professor.
08:08We saw Harvard itself change from one of the most respected institutions in the country
08:14into a place that the Secretary of Education thinks is located in Tehran.
08:19In response to MAGA's relentless attacks, our very own Dean Karana changed.
08:24The man underwent such a transformative experience that he turned into a white guy.
08:30Our president, Claudine Gay, also turned into a white guy.
08:35Yes, that's right, Presidents Gay and Garber are the same person.
08:41Why do you think they're the exact same height?
08:43Why do you think you've never seen them in the same room?
08:47But we also changed.
08:49When I entered Harvard, I believed that grade inflation was a myth.
08:53Four years later, I have a GPA of 3.968 and I'm graduating at the bottom of my class.
09:02Tomorrow, we will change again, transforming from the apples of our parents' eyes into the
09:07utter disappointments living in their basements.
09:11The second truth is that challenges are ever-present.
09:16Harvard faced one of the greatest challenges in its history when President Trump demanded
09:20that we pay him $1 billion.
09:24This, for reference, is the price of one HSA laundry plan.
09:29Things only got worse when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cut the United States military's
09:35ties with Harvard after he learned that alcohol wasn't allowed in Harvard Yard.
09:41Trump's funding cuts have already hit us where it hurts.
09:45Next year, Yard Fest is going to be headlined by a piece of red-spiced chicken.
09:51In order to make up for the funding shortfall, President Gay, I mean Alan Garber, has had
09:57to resort to unorthodox methods of fundraising.
10:00Now, in addition to renaming buildings, donors can rename students.
10:07After several generous donations, my blockmate, Eric, is now known as the TH Chan, Eric.
10:13My friend, Ishan, is now the Sackler family, Ishan.
10:18And my unfortunate classmate, Kenneth, has become the Kenneth C. Griffin, Kenneth.
10:24This reminder of our university's financial troubles brings me to a third truth, that despite
10:31our differences, there is a great deal that unites us.
10:35The head of the Harvard Democrats and the head of the Harvard Republican Club may have
10:39different political views, but as aspiring politicians, they both made cringeworthy posts
10:45on At Harv 2026.
10:48Some of us prefer Hefe's and others like Felipe's, but none of us can remember who Larry Bacow is.
10:55Those of us in HVAC will go on to work as investment bankers, and those of us in THUD will
11:00go on
11:01to work as subway bucket drummers.
11:03Yet at the end of the day, we will all be in New York City.
11:09My friends, the road after Harvard will not be easy.
11:13But I am confident that if we remember these three truths, that change is constant, that
11:20challenges are unavoidable, and that there is more that unites us than divides us, then
11:25we will be well on our way to achieving these spectacular successes that will one day earn
11:30us our immortal place in some future version of the Epstein files.
11:38But seriously, I want to close by congratulating all of you.
11:41My classmates for making it through four years, your parents for being done with tuition payments,
11:47and everyone in the audience for making it through this speech.
11:50As I look out over this beautiful crowd, I see a lot of familiar faces.
11:54I see people I haven't spoken to since freshman year.
11:58If you're one of those people, and you enjoyed this speech,
12:01it's been too long.
12:02We should totally grab a meal next week.
12:06If you're one of those people, and you didn't enjoy this speech,
12:09know that I've always hated you.
12:12If you're Erica McDonald, keep in touch.
12:16And if you're the ICE agents who have been waiting for me patiently, I'm done.
12:20I'll meet you guys behind Widener.
12:22Thank you, and good luck.
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