 Good morning and welcome family friends staff and of course fellow graduates as We are here today. I would like to take a moment to thank friends and family in particular I'm sure my family is especially excited since today marks the end of texts asking You'll still love me if I fail analysis, right? And you'll still love me if my GPA drops, right? Jokes aside, I can say wholeheartedly. I would not be here today if it were not for them in One of my courses this fall. We looked at the word comfort Its meaning today is one many of us are familiar with to provide support But the origin of the word has the meaning to strengthen So thank you so very much for being both types of support Comfort to support and strengthen Berkeley was my dream school. I still recall receiving the email that admissions decisions had been released Ironically, I was in the middle of a campus tour of another UC school. I won't say which one It was around four o'clock in the afternoon, which I remember since after calling my parents and sister I called my grandparents. They live in Pakistan, which meant I was waking them up at around 4 a.m However, I knew that this news would have to supersede time zones Picking a major was something I found to be very difficult In fact when my family would hear of a new major. I was considering they would call it my major of the month. I Don't blame them either At one point or another I was majoring in economics almost every type of engineering architecture something pre-law and something pre-med Ultimately, I found that mathematics was the perfect intersection of all of these sets While many who study math are passionate about theorems and analysis For me it was the process and way of thinking Studying mathematics has given me a framework for how to learn The pursuit of knowledge is at the core of our celebration today As I reflect on the experience we have shared One thing has become certain The set of knowledge we have acquired at Berkeley is infinite Studying mathematics. I have learned logic and analysis Similarly, my fellow graduates have learned the details of so many disciplines here at Cal however, this infinite set is not strictly academic knowledge as edgy teens we learned how to make memes as Dance enthusiasts we have learned choreography in parking garages and across campus as As participants in democracy, we have seen the actualization of civic responsibility Consequently on occasion we have learned how to reroute ourselves to avoid large groups and protests on campus as Members of this community. We have understood how to push ourselves in every capacity Sometimes we have even had to learn how to fail and in doing so how to pick up and try again as Millennials we have learned what it means to work as hard as is humanly possible If we feel there is something our community needs we make it While here we have learned about living on our own The process is similar for many within a few weeks our home sickness for family and friends from home sets in Then we begin to mix little things like full-size refrigerators and dishwashers But we have learned to appreciate Treasures like quarters on laundry day We improve our culinary abilities in learning to not set off the fire alarm every time we cook We adapt our meal prepping to an oven that half the time will preheat and the other half the time will be a gas leak We have learned more than we can possibly imagine in physics and chemistry We derive a hydrogen molecule in Biology we find out that there may be more to learn than the mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell In computer science we take a recursive leap of faith in American cultures we learn to question American society and analyze the issues our Generation will face in language and history courses. We learn about the world beyond Berkeley We have grown by meeting individuals around us who come from all walks of life They may be of different ages and of nationalities Previously foreign to us Yet, even though we are all so different. We have found similarities as well in My first upper division linear algebra class. There was a student who could not have been older than nine At the same time another of my classmates was a retired gentleman who was auditing classes for the sake of learning Though we were different every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 a.m We sat in the Valley Life Sciences building together and were greeted dober utro by Professor Svezda stankova In learning from others we have grown as individuals who are accepting in doing so ultimately upholding those great morals and values of diversity and inclusion that our universities legacy supports and represents This legacy is one that came to be 150 years ago So while it may be terrifying to leave behind our time here We may instead look forward to joining 150 years of history as alumni of Berkeley The world is completely changed from the one it was in 1868 It is everyone in this room's responsibility to shape the world for the next 150 A few weeks ago A friend and I grabbed dinner from sliver and he told me about a quote he heard from the tv show American Horror Story A character says Nothing scares me. I went to Berkeley This resonated with me in a way. I'm sure it will with all of you Nothing can scare us because we made it through Berkeley My dream for my own future is to set up a system of urban cooperative farming in Lahore, Pakistan Thus creating jobs directly tackling the issue of hunger and building what we refer to as Neha, Pakistan Although I cannot be sure this pursuit will be fruitful After Berkeley, I feel prepared for the challenge and know that it is priceless to work on a project you truly believe been As the ceremony continues The time is rapidly approaching when we will no longer be undergraduate students at UC Berkeley Thus, we must relearn a few things We must adapt to our new environment far away from loved ones here We will no longer set our clocks to Berkeley time We may no longer have boba available at every street corner Moffitt Library will not be down the hill for all-nighters We will no longer be surrounded by a group for whom this campus is home Before closing this chapter in our lives, I urge you all to relearn one last thing Revisit the person you were when you applied to this school At some point each of us sat down to write an essay for admission In which we showed how certain we were that there was someone we wanted to be And most importantly That attending UC Berkeley was integral to our ability to become that person We all came here with goals and aspirations that we may not have had adequate time to pursue As of today though, december 15th 2018 We the graduating class of UC Berkeley have an opportunity to become whoever it is we choose to be So now I urge you all to go forward and be that person you once aspired to become For the last few years having been surrounded by some of the most hard-working and brilliant people I have ever met I hope no doubt that each of you has the ability to achieve those goals and become those people As with most endings this one is bittersweet Berkeley has helped shape each and every one of us into who we are today And while it may be sad to leave We are who we are in part because we are Berkeley bears So congratulations to all of the graduates Thank you to all of the family friends faculty and staff who have helped us along the way And last but not least go bears