(introductory music)
- Wow. Class of 2020
Dr. Ken has come back home! Au au au!
(applause)
Sorry for the delay
it took me 16 months to write this speech.
I had a, you know a perfectionist can lead.
Okay. Worth the wait, I'm uh, to the class of 2020.
Thank you. We are all here for you.
I am here for you,
and this is actually what I told president Price last night.
It's just whatever you need.
He reached out to me last year.
"Would you like to speak commencement?"
Whatever you need.
"We can't do the commencement because of pandemic."
"Can you just do a short video?"
Whatever you need.
"Can you come back?" Whatever you need
And so from the bottom of my heart, I'm
I'm sorry
I'm looking at each one of you right now.
And just saying from me to you, the class of 2020,
whatever you need, I'm always here for you.
So
Just to let you know that.
(applause)
'Cause we are going through this together.
We have survived this together and my love,
thoughts and prayers to go to all of us
who have lost during this.
And we're going to get through this together.
That's why I'm here.
That's why we're all here, to get through this together
because we collectively are Duke.
So, and bringing
(sight)
bringing back so many memories.
I just,
just personally for me a shout out
to my sister who is here
also a BN Duke scholar and smarter than me,
but whatever.
And my father, who is a retired professor of economics,
whose dream was to have his kids go to Duke,
personally, for me just to be a student here
I had already, I'd already won.
That was my whole goal as a kid.
I grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina.
I grew up just an hour from here.
I did all my formative years in Greensboro and
that was a dream to come here.
And then once I got here,
I was just a snot-nosed kid from Trent, too.
That was like back in 86 on north campus.
I was a snot-nosed kid and never in my wildest dreams.
Did I think I would be looking here at you today.
There's so many memories.
I was first and foremost,
we were cable before cable was a thing.
Back in 86, we had tents.
It wasn't legal. We skipped school.
We did shift work. My grades suffered.
It was an amazing time.
It was, Tommy Amaker was a senior,
Danny ferry was the star, and we lost and we loved it.
No uh,
but now it is so incredible.
Just walking through duke.
And I was just going by Cameron yesterday.
I forgot, I had started like my own chant at Cameron,
my sophomore year in 88.
And there was, there was a,
it was a Duke Carolina game and
there was a player by the name of King Wright for UNC.
He was a scrub that was coming off the bench.
And I was just like, "oh no, not Wright"
And then everyone.,"Oh no, not Wright"
And we won and I earned it and it's because of me.
So I give myself credit. Absolutely.
I mean, granted, he came back next year,
scored 30 points and we lost,
but that's beside the point guys.
But this is, this is,
it's hard to know what to say right now,
except that
I look at you because I was you. I am you.
And
this,
(sigh)
that this to me,
it's hard to,
it's hard to say what I want to say because
so many people before me have said this, I,
I, I was just an average kid.
I was just an average duke student.
I was just an everyday duke student.
I don't have the legacy that any of my fellow honorees have.
All I have in life.
All I have in life to offer is my heart.
And I'm offering that to you right now. All I have is love.
And if that is the only thing you come out of this
is just to love one another, to find your identity,
to find your flow in life.
That's all we need.
That's all we need right now is to find ourselves and
it's
(applause)
And what I mean by finding myself,
I didn't want to be an actor.
I was here to be pre-med and I,
and proudly wanting to be pre-med.
And then my second year,
second semester,
I took an intro to acting class
and it just changed my life.
I never did theater in high school.
I just was overcome with this passion and emotion
to perform that has not been extinguished.
Since I did do drama, I did hook and horn
That year, my sophomore year
"Kiss me Kate" was the first musical
first play I'd ever done in my life.
And I got my first review from the spectator.
And the spectator said, I know this from memory,
like have I mentioned Ken Jeong,
a puckish member of the course who best watch his back.
If he keeps upstaging the principles.
That was my first and only good review of my career.
So I actually auditioned to get into do drama
at the end of my sophomore year and got in,
David Ball was the head of Duke drama at that time
And I still remember the audition.
It was so heartbreaking because
I had to come to Jesus to talk,
not with my parents, but with myself, I didn't,
I didn't know who I was.
I didn't have confidence that I could perform,
that I could act, that I could do comedy.
I knew I had an aptitude,
but I thought I would just go on my way out.
This is a pre-professional school.
I'll be a doctor.
I'll be the guy: "Oh, he could have been"
And I would have been cool with it
that I thought was in the cards for me
and do drama was incredibly supportive.
They were like, we believe in your talent,
we also believe that you're smart enough to handle
both curriculums at the same time
You can be drama, you can be as zoology made a
you're going to be a double major.
And I'm like, no, I can't.
I can't, I'm not that smart.
I'm a hardworking guy.
And I work hard for everything I've been given,
but it was the most difficult period of my life
during Duke, to try to discover my identity.
And eventually I did repair my orgo grade second semester,
it went from like an A to a C minus and
I was fortunate enough to get into med school.
And by the way,
shout out to coach Scott, great game yesterday,
shout out to coach Scott. He,
(applause)
I met him a few years ago and he told the recruit,
he said, I,
he goes, "Ken went to UNC med school,
which is why he became a comedian."
So I love that.
God blessed him.
And it's kind of true so
(laughs)
but what I'm trying to say is that I found my identity.
I ultimately found my passion.
I found out exactly who I was at Duke,
and, it is safe to say
that I never would have the fame,
fortune, happiness, livelihood family that I have right now.
The value systems that I cherish in my life.
If I didn't go to Duke because
I would not be myself,
I would not be here today. I would not be acting.
I would not be doing anything that I love to do.
And it's because of Duke. I owe you everything.
And I'm just, I just thank you so much.
Thank you freshman year.
(applause)
No, thank you. No.
It, what I loved about duke,
in addition to your path,
to my passion and finding my identity was
I got to hang out, and occasionally get drunk
with the most brilliant minds.
And that was so inspiring.
I, meeting a lot of people through Duke
that have provided so many gifts, the world.
And that goes back to my Duke experience where I've met
the most brilliant minds.
Who've moved on to do the most amazing things.
And you know,
with regard to the pandemic, we always say, generically:
Don't deny the science.
Don't deny the science, let science dictate policy.
Don't deny the science,
and to the class of 2020.
Don't deny your potential.
I'm living proof of what your potential can be.
If you have an idea, follow it, find your flow.
That is been my whole life's mission right now
is to find my flow.
Any idea is a good idea.
Find your flow. Don't deny your potential.
You, you get to explore your potential
at Duke at the highest level,
at the highest rate of work ethic
in the most wonderfully intense learning environments.
Never sell your self short,
like I initially did in my life.
You never know what you can achieve.
I, I went with the flow.
I had an open mind and look what happened.
That's what happened then this is how I live my life now.
And now I'm a father of two beautiful daughters who are here
with me today.
And that's how I tell them how to live their life.
And even in the area of medicine, public health,
people are looking for outside the box, creative minds,
like our honorees to evolve our vaccines,
our antivirals and our treatments.
And as do graduates,
we all can offer something to that equation
because no matter what profession you choose in your life
never deny your potential. Find your flow.
That's important while you're at Duke.
It's more important now, now that we've left Duke.
If you go with that feeling,
which we were all able to cultivate an early age
and never let go of,
everybody who graduates Duke University can go far,
and true success at the end of the day is capitalizing
on your own uniqueness.
Find your integrative self.
Even when I was a practicing physician,
just kind of wanting to do comedy, I integrate,
I realized medicine. Science can be also my art.
I learned the vocabulary and clinical algorithms
as an internist.
And I would what I learned even from my comedy background,
even if that was where I was destined to be,
I made my job.
I've made my science, my art,
listening to the patient,
listening to the symptomatology,
reading the results of the tests and synthesizing
this information with critical thinking
and making decisions off of that information.
And that's what I learned at Duke.
That's the most important thing I learned,
is critical thinking,
integration of our knowledge base and passion
and absorbing that into one blend.
Find your flow,
integrate your critical thinking into your art
because the best critical thinkers
are the best leaders.
You're all.
Anyone who goes to college is being put in a
position to succeed. But as graduates,
you're being put in a position to succeed and lead,
find your passion, find your identity and use both to lead.
And it's amazing in LA, in Hollywood where everyone's lazy.
They're just like "you have an amazing work ethic."
No, I don't. I have a Duke work ethic.
I don't work any harder than anybody here
before me right now.
I, in order to survive, I had no choice,
but to work hard. That is my biggest talent.
I cultivated my work ethic at Duke,
and there's always a part of me,
a Duke part of me, no matter where I go, you know,
I've cultivated that.
Even more important than fame or fortune,
I, I've never stopped learning.
I've always evolved.
I'm always trying to figure things out,
knowing that I don't have life all figured out
because the moment you think
you have life all figured out,
you have a pandemic in front of you.
And then what do you do? You know what?
You keep searching.
You keep moving forward because eventually you can be part
of the solution, and not the problem,
because that is what a true Duke graduate does.
And I'm still learning things, right?
Even my own small corner of the world is still evolving.
Still trying to move beyond just comedy and overacting.
Just still trying to move beyond just evolve.
I directed my first film, my first short film a month ago,
it was one of the best experiences of my life.
I never went to film school. I'm just learning.
I'm learning right now. And because honestly,
because what I've cultivated here with the
Asian Student Association to being involved
in the stop Asian hate movement
that has informed me for the rest of my life,
what I've learned here,
finding my own identity with ASA and on the COVID front,
trying to like Vince said, raise awareness,
conducting like, Instagram lives
with heads of state.
Next week I'm even doing an Instagram live
with the surgeon general Vivek Murthy
@Ken Jeong, follow me. Now.
And I'm always evolving.
I'm at a new chapter in our life.
We're all at a new chapter in our lives.
We're all resetting ourselves right now
because of the pandemic.
And I'm in the middle of that reset to,
I don't know exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow,
but I know what I'll always do is keep learning.
Never stop evolving because you never know.
And in my own world,
I had an uncertain future and I found a way to embrace it,
not knowing where the end point is.
And if I am 52 years old,
I know, I look damn good and
still excited as to where my end
point will be.
I challenge each and every one of you
to the Duke class of 2020
to have that same passion and excitement.
And that is a true value of a duke degree. It truly is.
Thank you so much congrats to the class of 2020.
You made it. And I love you
Go Duke!
(music)