[MUSIC]
NICHOLAS JOHNSON: I am truly humbled by this honor and privilege of addressing you, Princeton's great Class
of 2020, on this very significant day in our lives.
I find it hard to imagine that four years have passed since we first walked through
FitzRandolph Gate together.
We have learned an incredible amount since then through our classes, research, community
engagement, international experiences, and friendships.
More importantly, we have learned that we have far more to learn.
As an operations research concentrator, I cannot help but ponder the probability of
me addressing our class today, virtually, from my home in Montreal.
To Princeton, our mentors, and relatives, thank you for inspiring us to believe in the
improbable.
During freshman summer, I traveled to Peru with Princeton's Engineers Without Borders
Peru Team to construct a water distribution system in Pusunchas, a community of roughly
100 families without access to a reliable source of clean water.
We spent the summer building -- literally.
We dug trenches, laid PVC pipe, and built various concrete structures, working alongside
community partners.
I will never forget the feelings of pride, happiness and amazement we shared when, at
the end of summer, water flowed tens of kilometers from the source capture, located in the soaring
mountains to the first tap stand we had built at a house on the hillside.
What made this experience so memorable for me was the opportunity to contribute to building
something tangible, using skills developed at our new home away from home, and witnessing
firsthand the profound impact on the community's quality of life.
It was reminiscent of the sense of wonder, anticipation and exhilaration I experienced
when first challenged to solve a Rubik's cube.
At that moment, I embraced building as a vehicle of progress and bridge to a better future.
I believe that building is the best way to create and deliver value to the world.
Building is not restricted to the creation of tangible objects.
Together, we have built communities, relationships, traditions, innovative algorithms, and lasting
memories.
Building is fundamentally a means to serve humanity.
When I reflect on our collective accomplishments, I feel confident that each of us possesses
the ability to build and to create.
After all, we each made it through our senior thesis!
Identifying what needs to be built is inherently harder and arguably of greater importance
than specifying how something is built.
It is the first step one takes in creating the future and requires an intimate familiarity
and engagement with the present state of the world coupled with a capacity to unabashedly
dream of a distinctly different future.
In the words of Michelle Obama, of the Class of 1985, "it was possible, I knew, to live
on two planes at once, to have one's feet planted in reality but pointed in the direction
of progress.
You may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should
be."
I challenge each of us to develop our own unique answer to the question "What needs
to be built?" and to revise our answers as we continue to learn.
Think critically about what needs to be built in the world, build it, and never stop learning.
Today marks a new beginning, with a truly unprecedented challenge.
COVID-19 has taken too many lives, disrupted daily life, and forced us to reevaluate our
structures and functions within society.
My heart aches for all who have lost loved ones to this pandemic.
This new disease is not going to disappear quickly, and it will likely give rise to a
new normal.
Let us rise to the occasion to make transformative strides in advancing solutions to the world's
most pressing problems.
Let us fight passionately to ensure that this stressful period of sacrifice will be remembered
as a moment in history when diversity of thought, creativity, compassion, and bravery conquered
fear of a common threat to humankind.
With perseverance, we will overcome.
More than ever, let us build a better normal.
Meanwhile, let us look forward to the promise of act two in person next spring!
Congratulations Class of 2020!