Kopi Time E127 - My commencement speech for Yale-NUS graduating class of 2024

Mdm Kay Kuok, Chair of the Yale-NUS Governing Board
Members of the Yale-NUS Governing Board
Professor Aaron Thean, Deputy President (Academic Affairs) and Provost of NUS
Professor Joanne Roberts, President of Yale-NUS College
Families, Yale-NUS community, and Friends

And dear graduates,

Most of you were the class of 2020 in high school, your graduations disrupted by a once in a century pandemic. Today, as the Yale-NUS graduating class of 2024, your lives are mercifully not disrupted. It would however be tone-deaf to not recognize that many graduates in the Middle-East, Ukraine, or the US, won’t be enjoying a commencement like yours this year.

This is a heavy realisation as we traverse through life. Moments of celebrations and triumph for many are invariably juxtaposed with sorrow, loss, and sadness elsewhere. At your highest highs and lowest lows, know that there are others with a different luck of the draw.

Graduates, recognising that life’s peaks and valleys are inevitable can be liberating. It underscores the line “nothing lasts forever.” I think it also makes us less self-complacent, less territorial and possessive, more humble, and open to experiencing the next, the other. And perhaps, along those lines, more open to experiments. I want to explore the wisdom of experiments in the rest of this talk.

Experiments can be scientific or social, public or personal. You can experiment with a business plan, a critical query, a new diet, a different workout, or just see if hearing someone out could give us an insight not feasible within our experiences.

Consider hanging out with students from different majors an experiment. During my graduate school days, that very experiment led me to my life partner. 

Reach out to those from different religions, political persuasion, culture, or lifestyle, and see if their company and proximity make our lives richer and more joyous. If our mutual humanity can transcend our differences. These are experiments for the rest of your lives. And they will matter more as you delve into higher studies or jobs.

If you’re a scientist, your vocation is largely about testing hypothesis through experiments, but surely that’s not where it ends.

America is an experiment. Singapore is an experiment. Yale-NUS has been an experiment.

Every new idea’s worth is tested through experiments. Is it possible to send humans to the moon and back? Let’s experiment, let’s try. Is it possible to have a thriving, multicultural, multiracial society? Let’s experiment. If it fails, try again.

Some pursuits can follow the path of Thomas Edison, noisy and full of stumbles, but at the end, marked by glorious achievements. To paraphrase him, he never failed, he just successfully found the numerous ways that the experiment would not work.

Some experiments can be spectacularly successful over a short period of time, thanks to luck, serendipity, or a stroke of genius. I wish you have those, but I also know that for the most you, that will not be the case. My hope is in fact that you leave this campus with the grit necessary to follow Edison’s path, and don’t shy away from your dreams at the first, second, or even third roadblock.

Your exceptionally fortunate time at the Yale-NUS, in my view, has been an experiment of a lifetime. You could have gone to so many other places, but aren’t you gratified that you came here? Reflecting on President Roberts’s words, this place has hopefully instilled in you the patience, perseverance, and sense of community critically needed to make a difference.

This beautiful campus, these dedicated and brilliant faculty, and these amazing facilities have nourished your minds over the past four years. That experiment of liberal arts in the heart of Singapore has been a resounding success. You made that