Hello everyone!
Such a beautiful day, today.
After that marathon of taking courses, staying up all night, getting ready for meetings and
studying for exams, experimenting in the lab or the field, and the last year…
Oh well, we’re here.
Some of us are here.
Some of us are at home, watching remotely, and only a few of us are here but sitting
physically distanced apart.
I’m sure our families are watching too, probably crying tears of joy.
Moms, dads, you asked us hundreds of times about our graduation date.
I’m going to answer that as the voice of everyone here.
Today is the day we are graduating.
I’m honored to be here.
I want to thank the Graduate Student Council for giving me this opportunity,
and I want to thank President Paxson, Dean Campbell, Provost Locke, Provost Prasad, Provost
Poloma, Dean Suarez, and especially Dean Shayna Kessel for trusting me along the way.
Directly or indirectly, they gave me the courage, and the reason, to stand in front of all of you.
I will make sure to make them, my family, and my friends proud.
I will also make sure to show you engineers can talk in public, without jargon.
I’m standing in front of you, because of what Brown University, these people behind
me, and you, mean to me.
I want to tell you a story of an Iranian boy who had the smallest comfort zone and was
so happy in it that he was even scared of speaking in his native language, Farsi, for
a group of friends.
I tell you how and why a boy, who couldn’t speak English 7 years ago when he came to
the US to pursue his American Dream, is now giving a speech in English, and not any speech,
and not to any audience.
He is giving a Ph.D. graduation speech for the Class of 2021 in front of one of the most
educated communities and in one of the best schools in the world.
Please give yourselves a round of applause.
You all deserve it.
I left my family, friends, and community 7 years ago.
I had only one purpose when I came here.
To grow up and learn whatever I can.
I admired the individualistic lifestyle here.
I loved it!
I was telling myself, “people around you are not going to stay from now on, so man
up, pick some battles, fight some of them, you’ll get there.”
But, about four and a half years ago so many things happened around the same time that
changed my life.
I joined Brown, an unsettling rhetoric was getting more attention around the country,
and then the Travel Ban banned me from seeing the only other thing I had beside me:
the hope of seeing my family.
I was lost and lonely.
At the end of September 2017, I was reading our graduate student listserv emails--
Everything is (laughs).
The whole world is shaking.
So I was reading our graduate student listserv emails--
and I saw an email with the title of “Public Narrative Workshop,” all day, Hope Club,
breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
Free food in the “famous fancy” Hope Club!
I love free food, so I signed up!
In that event, no students showed up.
Only faculty were there and they were talking to me like they were talking to their friends.
In Iran, these people are unreachable.
I was intimidated.
I wanted to get out, but breakfast was really good.
So, I sat down.
Then, Provost Locke showed up.
I was scared and confused, wondering, “why are all these people here?
Is this a secret society or what?”
My heartbeat was racing, and my small comfort zone was already shaking.
Provost gave a short speech, and it was a personal story that made me feel like Provost
was my closest friend.
He ended his speech by reciting, “If not you, then who?
If not now, then when?”
That meeting showed me you don’t have to be born in the same country to be in a community.
For the first time in the US, I didn’t feel alone.
I saw beyond myself.
When it was just me, I had to fight my battles alone, and I was happy and proud.
But with my community, I knew I was unstoppable.
That’s why I’m standing here, I’m privileged and humbled, but I also feel pressured.
We are graduating from one of the best schools in the world, with the highest degree that
we, humans, have created.
This is big.
The spotlight is on us today, and it’s well-earned and well-deserved.
We worked hard to push the boundaries of research just a little bit.
We worked many days from early mornings to late nights, struggling with details and problems,
sacrificing our social lives to get this comma Ph.D. at the end of our name.
But to me, this is not the end.
This is just the beginning.
It’s an amazing feeling and proud accomplishment that I bet you all have, like me,
but I’m here to say that I believe that more luck or a brighter spotlight brings more responsibilities.
We all, no matter our race, gender, ethnicity, language, hometown, are the lucky ones, and
we’ll have the spotlight with us forever.
I feel that we have a responsibility to the unlucky ones.
You might be worried about what your next chapter is about or what might happen next.
But I want to tell you that I’m not worried about you, but I am worried about those unlucky
ones whose lives you can change, but you choose not to, by focusing too much on yourself.
I don’t want to sound arrogant or make us feel our Brown brand, or this degree should
make us feel superior because I’m sure you don’t feel that, and you also find it humbling.
The pandemic was awful, and it showed us the unbearable lightness of our lives,
but it also showed our perseverance and determination that we can do anything we set our minds to.
This pandemic also shows us that there are so many unlucky ones who can’t celebrate
this day because they were born in the wrong family or wrong country
or they did not have that second, third, and fourth chance that we all had.
It is up to the fortunate ones to minimize the role of luck.
Thinking about a collective goal is hard, but I’m here to tell you I found the solution
that can get you out of this individualistic lifestyle.
Show up.
Just show up.
It doesn't matter if you’re planning to stay in academia to educate the next generation
of doctors, or become a researcher and push the boundaries
of science, or move on to the industry to make perfect
products that can change our world, or enter politics to change our lives directly.
But...don’t stay happy in your comfort zone.
The day I went to that workshop, I wasn’t looking for a sense of purpose or my community.
I was looking for food somewhere fancy.
You won’t know what is waiting for you if you don’t show up.
So, when they call you, call back.
When they don’t call you, volunteer, stand up, and take the lead on something that you care about.
We have the credentials for it, and we are the fortunate ones.
We are not allowed to stay on the sidelines.
Fighting your own battles is fun and makes you feel proud, but let’s not fight our
battles alone.
Let’s not “pick some, fight some.”
Let’s fight them all.
What I experienced and learned at Brown University reminds me of the first poem I learned on
the first days of school in Iran.
The poem is written in 13th century by Saadi, a prominent Iranian poet, and it is titled
“Bani Adam” which means Humans, and it says:
بنی آدم اعضای یکدیگرند که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند
Human beings are members of a whole In the creation of one essence and soul.
Let’s not forget that.
Congratulations to you and your families, my friends!