Throughout my life, I have
only seen my Mom cry two times.
The first time was at T.F. Green airport
four years ago as she was about to drop me off
at the plane after orientation.
I still remember the tears rolling down her
face as we embraced in an overly dramatic
good-bye hug.
The second time I saw her cry was four months
ago when I came home from winter break with
my ears pierced and my hair dyed blonde.
I actually still don't know which time
she cried harder.
I love you, Mom.
When I was deciding between colleges,
one of my close mentors gave me advice
that I still now pass on.
He said: "Every college will provide you
with more or less the same education,
but they will each shape you in different ways.
Imagine all of the different versions
of yourself at the end of the four years
at each of the schools,
and choose a version of yourself
that you like the most.”
For me, that school was Brown.
These past few months, I've thought a lot
about this advice.
How has Brown changed me, us?
It would be easy to point out all the
obvious ways in which we have changed.
Like many of us, I came into Brown as Pre-Med,
and like many of us, I am no longer Pre-Med.
My entire freshman year, I barely spoke
to anyone because I felt so intimidated.
It felt like everyone else in my dorm room
had a clear sense of purpose and vision.
They had things that they were good at,
things that they were passionate about.
They were working on diversity and inclusion
in the physics department,
winning hackathons,
or working to tackle the spread of malaria.
There were clear reasons
why they were chosen to be at Brown.
On the other hand, I wore a bathrobe 24/7
and slept through my 2:00 p.m. Biology seminar
on a weekly basis.
I hadn't read work from any of the leading
thinkers and didn't understand most of the
words used in my first-year English class.
Who is Nietzsche,
and why is his name so hard to pronounce?
I shopped and dropped CS 15 three times;
It got to the point where Andy Van Dam
thought I was a TA for the course
because I showed up year after year.
By mid-sophomore year, I was just about done.
I was certain that I was in the wrong place.
That year, I began attending
workshops on this thing they called
"impostor syndrome," something that I’m sure
many of us went through,
trying to reassure myself
that I did in fact belong.
And each talk said more or less the same thing:
the admissions office does not make mistakes.
You have grit.
You've worked hard.
You deserve to be here.
As I progressed through Brown,
there was more and more reinforcement
of this idea.
Advertisements and fundraising campaigns
all hammered in this point:
Brown students are different.
We are critical thinkers.
We are special.
Needing to believe that I had a reason
to be at Brown, I drank it up.
With this newfound confidence,
I saw more subtle things change in my behavior.
I noticed that the same ideas verbalized with
academic language suddenly had more weight.
And so I changed the way I talked.
I changed my vocabulary.
I tried to catch up with my classmates
and began citing theories in everyday conversations,
using words that were unnecessarily
long and convoluted.
While these things aren't inherently bad,
what eventually happened was I began to place
more and more value on those behaviors
and, consequently, the people that embodied them.
It shifted who I saw as impressive,
who I saw as deserving.
I saw the repercussions of this troubling
academic elitism take shape around me earlier
this semester when the travel ban was instated.
Many of us shared Facebook posts
of an M.I.T. student unable to re-enter the country.
In our posts, we cited his academic potential,
his future contributions to academia
as to why this was a travesty.
While unintentional and well meaning,
this line of thought drew the connection
between someone's ability to contribute to society,
their accomplishments, and their intelligence
with how deserving they were of their rights.
What does this say about the student
from a less-flashy school with a less-than-stellar
academic performance?
Are they any less deserving?
It is especially critical to remember this
during a time when celebratory terms of congratulations
and words like "deserve," "earned," and "merit"
are swimming in the air.
We have worked hard.
We have accomplished.
But an Ivy League education,
how many academic scholars we can quote,
whether we've read Marx, or coded Tetris
does not make us inherently any better
or any more deserving than anyone else.
Addressing our own insecurities about
inadequacy does not mean
that we have to overcompensate
by turning to elitism just to increase
our sense of self-worth.
If you want to see hard work,
look at my Mom and my aunts,
who moved here from Vietnam without knowing
a word of English and taught
themselves to be dental assistants.
If you want to see grit,
look at my dad and my grandfather,
who worked until 4:00 a.m.
every day delivering newspapers
to make ends meet.
Don't just look at us.
If Brown has taught me one thing,
it's that intelligence can't be captured
by a piece of paper.
Today, as we obtain our degrees,
remember that we should not be celebrating
how the degree differentiates us
from the rest of the world.
We should be celebrating the responsibility
that it provides us to ensure that others
have the same opportunities
that we have had at Brown.
We need to use the platform that a Brown diploma
gives us to equalize the playing field,
to the point where having an Ivy League degree
is no longer necessary to be heard.
The inspired fire that I see every day
in my classmates' eyes to tackle injustices
that is why I chose Brown.
My peers, the tireless advocates
sitting here today that continue
to fight for a better world
that is the person that I wanted
to become at the end of my four years.
And to me, sharing that experience,
that is the true value of Brown.
We need to continue to fight the good fight,
but remember that we cannot win
sitting at the top of the ivory tower.
Thank you to the class of 2017;
it's been an incredible four years.
Let's fight the good fight, and let's win.
Thank you.