 Hello graduates. Congratulations. I offer you hearty congratulations. Congratulations to the class of 2020. Graduated from UC Berkeley. Congratulations 2020 graduates. Massive congratulations on graduation. I am incredibly proud of your accomplishments. Reach the finish line. Go Bear. Congratulations class of 2020. You're a class that's gonna go down in history. In the past few weeks, you've had to develop capacities of mind and character that will serve you well throughout your whole lives. Ingenuity, patience, the ability to change on a dime, the ability to confront the unknown and the unexpected. So take those qualities, own them for yourself, and depend on them as you move into a world that is full of so much uncertainty. It's a world that I'm sure you are going to make better. So fiat looks and go Bears. Congratulations. I'm so proud of each and every one of you. I wish you success, but not only success. I wish you joy. I wish you a healthy life. I wish you an inspired life. We're living in a very interesting time right now. So I encourage you to fight for your dreams. Go out there and take the world by storm. And to all of the students whom I've had the pleasure of teaching, I wanna say thank you for inspiring me. To the class of 2020, congratulations. Now go live. Hi, I'm Jill Bacorn. I'm in the sociology department and I've been teaching here at Cal since 2013. The first thing I wanna say to the graduating class of 2020 is congratulations. I am incredibly proud of your accomplishments, even more so given everything that you have been through to get here. You got through wildfires, dangerous air quality, power shutoffs, massive protests, ongoing threats to the protection for undocumented students among many other things, and now the pandemic. So I hope that you feel really proud you got here. That's an amazing accomplishment. One thing I wish I knew when I graduated college is that there isn't one path to purpose in life, one path to joy, one path to fulfillment. I thought I knew where my life was going when I got my bachelor's degree. I had it very planned out. But life as it often does intervenes in unexpected and sometimes tragic ways. You may feel like your carefully laid out plans are now deferred, in jeopardy, maybe off the table altogether. But there isn't just one path available to you. Be open to what life brings. It can be unexpected, but adjust, you've already proven that you can do that. I wish you the very best as you move on with your journey. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. If there's one thing this semester has taught me is that if you extend kindness to others, you will get it back tenfold. I cannot wait to hear where your life takes you. Please keep in touch. And once again, congratulations. Hello, I'm Dr. Josh David Jackson of Media Studies, and I've taught here nine years. For months, you've been hearing of our uncertain and troubled times. And these messages are important, but what I want to communicate now is important too. Your categorical greatness and tremendous success. You exude the sure-footed confidence and obvious excellence of the bear, the brilliant combination of the vision and speed of the falcon, the too often overlooked tenacity and preparedness of the mighty squirrel. And you've graduated from UC Berkeley, a university that has turned a mid-sized city, not even the largest in its county, not even in the top three, into a worldwide destination for millions of hopeful applicants. A degree from Cal never tarnishes, fades, or diminishes. It's as valuable and meaningful today as it was 150 years ago. And now you have one. You've earned it. It's yours. Congratulations, class of 2020. My name is Alexander Paulin. I'm a lecturer in the maths department and I've been teaching at Berkeley since 2008, so a bit over 10 years. So firstly, hello class of 2020. Massive congratulations on graduating. Graduating from Berkeley is, it's a massive achievement and one that's gonna stay with you for, well, the rest of your life. You've come a ridiculous, like, distance in four years, but really this is only the start. I mean, the experiences you've had here at Berkeley are gonna be the foundations for so many of your future achievements. I've been asked to give you some final advice. So I'll say the following. I think I'm sure there were times at Berkeley when you struggled. That's gonna be the case in the future as well, right? You are going to be confronted with really kind of difficult challenges and you'll struggle. Certainly when I was kind of a recent graduate, there were tasks I was doing or things I was trying to solve problems, which seemed impossible at the time and I was really struggling, right? It was really difficult. If I could go back to that time now and give myself some advice, I think there'd be two things. The first would be not be afraid to change course. So you might feel that there are, there's only one path open to you. It's like there's only one way you can succeed. It has to be this way and if it's not this way, it's failure. So that's just not true. That's wrong. What you'll find is the world is full of opportunities and even though something may not work out the way you think it will, something else will work out. Something that actually may be much better for you, something that maybe will make you much happier. So keep an open mind and don't be too rigid in what you perceive success to be. The second thing is kind of obvious as well in a sense, but don't struggle alone. So in the times in the past as a recent graduate, when I was really struggling, I felt my problems were very unique to me or very specific to me. I'm so specific, I couldn't really share them in a meaningful way and maybe if I did share, it would show weakness as well. So that's just not true. I was completely wrong. And sharing your worries is really the first step to resolving them when it comes down to it. And no problem really is insurmountable. You may think it is, but trust me, when you kind of talk it out with other people who have more experience than you perhaps or a different perspective, often the problem won't be as impossible to deal with as you might think. At the same time, something I'll say is always be generous with your own expertise. So there are going to be times when people come to you for help, always make an effort to help them, right? Things that may seem very small to you in the future, right? Helping someone out with a problem that to you is very simple, can have a huge impact on them. So be as generous as you can with the expertise you have. So the last thing I really want to say is just, well, we're all going to miss your Berkeley, a huge amount. It really has been an honor teaching you. You've been an amazing class. And I know that you're going to do incredible things in the future. And next time you're in Berkeley, do come and see us just to tell us what you're up to. So congratulations again and have a great summer, guys. Hello, graduates of 2020. My name is Steve Sutton. I'm the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. I've had the privilege to work at Berkeley for 16 years of my career. I'm really here just to give you a quick congratulations and a shout out for your hard work and determination. You've reached the finish line. There are many ways I think we can describe the class of 2020, but I would describe you as resilient. I think that you've encountered a tremendous amount during your time at Berkeley, starting with free speech issues in 2017, the art quality issues we encountered a couple years ago, the power outages of this past fall, and of course, COVID-19. A lot has happened. You've persisted, you've been resilient, and for that you're to be congratulated. You also have been the class that's taken back the acts from our arrival across the bay. So good luck as you become new alumni. Please stay in touch. We always love to hear from our Bears after they've left the campus. And feel lucks and go Bears. Congratulations 2020 graduates. I was so very much looking forward to graduation, one of the highlights of my entire year where I get to meet you and your families, give you all hugs, share with you, hear some of the inspiring graduation speeches by students and by faculty and by the guests, give you all a hug as you cross the threshold into your new degree. Just such a wonderful day. So we're trying to make this virtual. They know they would have talked about, oh, remember those hours in the basement of Soda Hall, and now I guess this last semester is remember the hours in your mom's basement, I guess. So who knows. This has been an insane ride. This has been an insane spring. There certainly is a way to cap it off, and I'm sorry that it all is thrown into a mix. We don't have the traditional graduation, but I'm sure you'll be able to have, that'll just be one way that you'll remember this unique and scary, but also a time where you can use some of that engineering to make better masks or make better diagnostics or make better virtual experiences for learning, which is some of the things that I've been working on, or make better ways that we can support those who are really challenged. So use that engineering degree to great effect, hopefully. Anyway, enjoy. Sorry we couldn't do this all face-to-face, but we're so proud of you. Please stay in touch with the department and stay in touch with the college. Give back. Remember to give back now to us to be able to support our program as we're continuing to run this, but also give back to your community, give back to others who are less fortunate. Thank you very much. Congratulations again graduates. Class of 2020, we gotta stop meeting like this. So I'm gonna zoom out of my corner and salute you in my own special way. Go Bears. It's Professor Olney. Congratulations. Let me pull that down so you can hear me. Congratulations to the class of 2020. I'm here on campus to wish you a heartfelt congratulations and what best wishes to the class of 2020. It's been a heck of a ride for y'all. You've had four years or two years like no other class that I can remember can even imagine. And we've ended it with a crazy end of a spring semester. I wish you all the best. I hope you remember well the times that happened before COVID. Remember the classes you took, the things you learned. Remember the people that you met, the people who challenged your worldview and helped you become the person that you are. You are now and you will always be a golden bear. So congratulations to the class of 2020 and Go Bears. Hey Cal graduates, I'm Alex Filipenko and I've been a professor of astronomy at Berkeley for 34 years. I offer you hearty congratulations on completing your studies at Cal. I'm so very sorry that many eagerly anticipated shared experiences of the final two months of your senior year have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has definitely been a crazy time and I hope we return to some sense of normalcy soon. Anyway, you're in great shape for the future. We believe in you with your education, determination, creativity, adaptability and resilience to adversity. You can make the most of what life has in store for you. In the long run, try to find a profession that you really love giving you joy and fulfillment. It may take a while to get there, but don't give up. I wish you the best in your future endeavors. Take care, be well and Go Bears. Congratulations UC Berkeley class of 2020 and Amanda Puchot, president of the California Alumni Association and I'm thrilled to welcome you as an alum. I know this isn't exactly how we plan to celebrate you but I trust that wherever you are, you are celebrating this phenomenal achievement in grand Cal style. You're joining half a million alumni strong, a family that supports you, believes in you and can't wait to see what you go out there and achieve. We need leaders like you now more than ever before to go out there and make a difference to change the world for the better for everyone. We're so incredibly proud of you and blown away by the resilience you've shown and we know that you're gonna go and do amazing things. Enjoy this time, celebrate it and Go Bears.