(audience cheering)
- [Host] Please welcome Amy Dong,
who received the bachelor of science
from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business in 2020,
and who will now address her fellow alumni.
(bell ringing)
(audience clapping)
- Hello, class of 2020?
(audience cheering)
And class of 2021 we're glad you're here too.
(audience laughing)
To all of us,
I lift an imaginary toast goblet
to say congratulations on officially graduating again.
My name's Amy,
but if you don't know who I am, that's totally cool.
I got dinner a month ago
with a few study abroad friends from 2017.
And our conversation literally started with someone pointing
at me and saying, oh my god, I totally forgot you existed.
We all laughed.
And then we admitted to each other just how far
and long ago everything NYU felt,
things like study abroad, exams, even each other.
But today with all of us gathered here at Yankee Stadium
of course we're reminded about everything NYU again.
Today we all chose to consciously hit pause
on our now adult lives to take a look back.
And because this isn't a normal commencement
and because these past two years haven't been normal years.
I'm sure I'm the first one who's told you that.
I'll forgo the usual, let's go change the world speech,
and instead, ask us all to spend the next few minutes
on the past.
If I asked you to recall one memory at NYU,
that'll last you for a lifetime, I'm sure you'd have one.
In fact, not just one, but dozens and hundreds
that made you want to come back here and celebrate today.
I know that I've been thinking about this particular moment
for a long time now, because for me
to be standing here is nothing short of a miracle.
In 2017, after my fall semester in Prague, I was diagnosed
with an eating disorder and told I was lucky to be alive.
I was extremely underweight, had a shrunken heart
and was this close to having a heart attack in my life.
I was pulled out of NYU in the spring
and I spent it at home alone, recovering my weight
and more importantly my sense of self.
What did it mean to be alive,
to live a life truly worth living?
And when I returned, I felt acutely aware
that I was lucky to be able to do the smallest things
like walk in the city, see a friend, even go to class.
I knew I had been granted a second chance at life.
So dammit, I was gonna make it worthwhile.
(audience cheering)
And then--
Thank you.
(audience cheering)
And then COVID hit.
And we all went home again and we all graduated remotely
in front of our computer screens.
And then it wasn't just me, but all of us who had to think
about or rethink what we really wanted out of life.
In my case, I moved to Taiwan.
I went to go teach English
under a Fulbright scholarship and everything. (laughs)
Everything was really good for a couple of months,
and then last April, I almost lost my life
for the second time in a freak train accident.
Two of my friends, including my roommate
at the time were not as lucky.
Now I'm telling this story not to evoke pity
or to make you sad, I promise.
I'm telling it because I bet every single one
of us sitting here or standing here has experienced loss
or grief or sacrificed in some way over the last few years.
And in spite of it all, we are here today
with our friends and family and we are very much alive.
(audience cheering)
And if that isn't the definition of resilience
I don't know what is.
And though we've lost much, we've also gained much.
We've gained perspective.
We've gained patience for others and also for ourselves.
And we've gained a collective sense
of how precious life really is.
Near death experience or not, we've all had to grapple
with the meaning of life these past few years.
And at the wise old age of 23
I think I found the answer.
For me, the meaning of life is twofold.
One, it's about enjoying the passage of time.
It's about looking forward yes,
but it's also about looking back, like we are today,
and just appreciate every single beautiful moment
that we've been able to collect
in the short amount of time we call one life.
And the second part is,
recognizing just how short life can be.
If nothing else, COVID taught us this.
So class of 2020, if there's just one thing you take away
from this speech today,
it's that you matter, your life matters, your time matters.
And because our time here as a family,
as a human group,
(laughs loudly)
we owe it to ourselves to take advantage
of every single moment.
Thank you.
And congratulations again.
(audience cheering)