May 2015
April showers bring May...commencement speeches! The commencement season is well underway and that means last night or this morning or this very minute, graduates across the country are swimming in post-college advice.
If you find yourself sitting through a tedious one or need a jolt of inspiration, a team at National Public Radio (NPR) has browsed through hundreds of grad speeches dating all the way back to 1774 (Barnabas Binney, by the way!) to compile the best 316 speeches, EVER. Its online database features video and/or transcripts of speakers ranging from Kurt Vonnegut to Kermit the Frog, from Richard Feynman to Sting.
Going a step further, they tagged each speech to one of fifteen themes or take-home messages. Here they are:
1. Play
2. YOLO
3. Inner Voice
4. Embrace Failure
5. Remember History
6. Make Art
7. Unplug
8. Work Hard
9. Don't Give Up
10. Fight for Equality
11. Be Kind
12.Change the World
13. Tips
14. Balance
15. Dream
So, there you have it! Maybe one of them can help us all prepare for the real world. It'll be interesting to see if any speech this year or in the future will break through these fifteen archetypes. Perhaps Robert De Niro's speech this year at New York University.