 Good morning. I am Austin Weinstein. I am the student speaker first off I'd like to thank Chancellor Christ, President Napolitano and Provost Alva Satoes for essentially everything So I am Austin Weinstein and I study economic history and my thesis was on the Export-Import Bank of the United States and As a special treat for everyone tonight. I will not be talking about my thesis At Cal I spent far far too much of my time at the Daily Californian the student newspaper here and most of what I covered is actually these people and That organization I want to give them a shout out because they've given me more than I ever could have imagined and they helped a honestly aimless freshman find something that he cares about and Before I get into anything I want to add two disclaimers the first of which I am 21 and Most 21 year olds don't have wisdom and most people under 30 don't have wisdom. So keep that in mind The second is that I really don't deserve this Mean the people that I saw walking up the looks were more surprised And I get that I mean I'm like a lot of people I've had things I've done Well if that things I've done poorly But you know as a 21 year old whose most notable employment is as an actual little drummer boy at the local mall I'd like to talk a little bit about something. I have a modicum of experience that and that's being a student at UC Berkeley I remember Whenever I'd get that really fun question. How's Berkeley going? My answer would never so much be about The fact that the toilet in my dorm was in a different room than the sink in my dorm Although it was It was always about the people the students the faculty the researchers everyone you meet even if you're not so sure they actually go here Nowhere on earth has a town in a city just decided to eschew the norms of human behavior like Berkeley this school in this city indulge in honestly self-carecature of an outrageous level the first person to show me around this campus was an alumnus and He was wearing a tie-dye shirt cargo shorts Birkenstocks and he was writing his scooter to his job at a white shoe law firm That's kind of where I started and not much has changed When I first came to Cal like many of you I was very clueless. I still am clueless, but this is helpful for this little bit I enrolled in chemistry computer science and history and What really stuck with me as well as my first history class I walk into the classroom and the professor He's standing up Right in front of the podium. He had a really nice tailored suit on it was probably his first day of class suit He stands up. He has his hair slicked back puts his hand behind his back and without looking at slides or notes he gives an hour-and-a-half lecture on ancient Rome that floored me and honestly Something clicked when you see something like that it clicks and I knew I had to study history I bent and people like this professor You meet a dime a dozen here. They're full of fantastic people. I'm sure everyone has a million of these stories I had a professor of Russian history Who taught the entire class in anecdotes and he was telling us I'm writing a book about an apartment complex It's over a thousand pages and we all looked at him like he was crazy Yet when their views came out it was called monumental epic and a Soviet war and peace And I remember another time I was interviewing a STEM professor for an article for the Daily Cow And I went up to his office is in Soda Hall I knock on the door and he cracks the door open and says wait outside I'll talk to you outside and right before he shuts the door I look inside and I see that even if he wanted to invite me inside his office is so Scattered with papers and books and documents. There was no room except for his chair people like him They make Berkeley worth it and I'm not even talking about the computer science students I was out to lunch with one the other day and who's complaining about you know the job offer he got and I said congratulations I'm getting a job offer. You know, what's the issue? He says well, he low-balled me and I asked if it's okay if I ask What's low ball and he says a hundred thousand dollars? So that's cool But for me and I know for a lot of you Berkey Berkeley occupies a really unique place in this world It's something that stuck with me It's a place that people expect the best of a person's capacity here when you're allowed to be excessively almost comically passionate And that's why this place is so essential and so important. I mean for God's sake plutonium was discovered here I mean we can't give up that up Because that's not to say there aren't problems because there are I mean your students here, you know Every day there's a new headline. That's a little more disheartening than the last headline And I know this because I've written a lot of those headlines I mean depending on whom you trust you see Berkeley is either the number one public school in the world or the number two UC camps in California state funding makes up 15% or less of the school's budget and the athletic department has more debt than Turkmenistan We faced with all the good that this place can and must do berkeley's at a crossroads and As the country hits 10 years of consecutive economic growth this campus is having a wide and big budget cut right now We're right across from one of the wealthiest cities in the country Yet students here live in bad housing for high prices and are submerged by a cost of living that makes it more expensive to go here than NYU And for God's sake We can raise 10 million dollars to build a video board yet At the same time we're cutting Berkeley connect and the history department's espresso machine But at the end of the day We've never done anything like this before We're 150 years in and the University of California is an experiment in a high level public education That's surpassed everything that could have been expected of it and more At almost 150 years you've got to expect there's gonna be kinks issues At a time when the very meaning of the word public is in crisis UC Berkeley is one of the most impactful examples Of what the word public can mean and what the word public can do All of you in front of me graduating today are part of that example part of a long legacy of exemplary people and exemplary students and so I kind of leave with a confidence Not just because this day is special and there's pomp and circumstance Because of that resiliency I mentioned It sticks with you and it makes people from Berkeley people want to cow unique It's why I don't think that despite the challenges Berkeley faces that's gonna change anytime soon. It's why Obstacles at UC Berkeley. They don't really feel like obstacles And it's why UC Berkeley continues to be a fantastic institution And so That's my piece. Good luck to Chancellor Christ. Good luck to everyone graduating today. Thank you and go Bears