 Now, we're going to hear from another student that you have selected, a student that you have selected to speak from the BA Class of 2018, Sojung Kim. Sojung Kim graduates today with a BA in Public Policy and a minor in Political Science from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. At the University of Michigan, she has worked for the Poverty Solutions Initiative, The Michigan Daily, M-City, and America Reads. As a Michigan in Washington participant, she completed internships with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. House of Representatives. She is the elected BA student representative on the Ford School's Alumni Board. After graduation, she's going to be returning to Washington, D.C. as the 2018 Thomas J. O'Brien Policy Fellow at the Eno Center for Transportation. Sojung is in every way a credit to the Ford School. She's even helped bring athletic glory. She is the two-time captain of the school's intramural broom ball team, GoBettyWebs. I'm so pleased to welcome her to the podium. I'm so excited to stand on this step stool facing what would ideally be 77 of my dear peers, our families, the staff, faculty, writing instructors, friends, and graduate students who have supported us all this way. Thank you to everyone here and especially to my loving mom for my life and everything in between. I'd like the audience to know that tomorrow is her birthday. So I will begin the student remarks by drawing our collective attention to the pivotal leap year of 2008. Why am I being nostalgic? Well, a few cool things happened then. 2008 was declared the international year of the potato. What else of note? We had an economic recession, a presidential election, the summer Olympics, but more personally, the Ford School admitted its inaugural class of 53 undergraduate students. That's right. 2018 marks 10 years of us college kids making our presence known in the student lounge. This of course means the BAMPP rivalry lives on to face its second decade in holiday skit jokes and bar crawl shirt designs. But today we sit here together politely, perhaps restlessly or reflectively. I've certainly been doing a lot of reflecting these past few weeks, taking meandering walks, reviewing old assignments for writing samples, and being plain old sentimental, which brought me back to my Ford School application essays. Pair freezing a bit, my sophomore self wrote, public policy as Ford teaches it and as I understand it is wedded to academic research, professional communication, and compassion. Did I predict these past two years well? I would say so, yes. My classmates and I have been indoctrinated with the ship and 320 mantra, preferences, policies, and institutions hang together in a rough equilibrium. We edited down a lot of crisp and pithy memos. We hugged each other as the real world erupted and we marched in streets together towards higher ideals. My heart certainly won't let me forget problematizing every minutia through true dialogue as my 495 class did, granting out $42,000 with Professor Tompkins staying and as generations of 40s do discussing human rights and reparations in Professor Henry's seminars. We would be lying to ourselves and shutting out the last two years of our policy education if we said public policy is easy. It is so darn messy. It gets messy because people are messy. And because people care deeply, we must listen to them all the more. These are stakeholders, implementers, legislators, or the observant epistemic community. Sorry, jargon translation, the knowledge community of academics and scholars such as our esteemed professors here today in their full regalia. But there was something else I had not expected to gain at the corner of state and hill, something softer than a soft skill. If we consider how our policy priorities emerged, they likely came from experience, maybe anger, intellectual awe, or humble inspiration. Our chosen niches and fields feed on our raw curiosity for contested public goods and elevating quality of life. I now realize what underlies research, communication, and compassion. Those three buckets of a policy degree I had hypothesized 2 years earlier is just passion. That gut and heart for the hard work of rigorous policy intervention will keep us young even 20 years after the international year of the potato. Now let me be clear, I don't want you to leave here today feeling like a self-satisfied wonk. We all know there's so much more to learn and uncover beyond four focus area classes. We all know there's so much, I'm probably speaking to you now from the same Rackham stage where Stephen Levitt of Freakonomics delivered the Ford School Centennial talk. While closing out his remarks, the Economist applauded policy scholars for catalyzing political action with their expertise and relentless nerdiness. So let's earn that praise. I'm confident that we as graduates will carry on with the nerdy wonkery that delights or frustrates us. I believe it is our imperative to influence policy. That is where we are going and what we work toward. Political change is best fueled by inner growth and passion. Evidence-based perhaps, but community-driven at best. I encourage us all to feel a little feisty, read up, reach out, then go out there and make some change. Thank you to my rock star cohort for the honor and delight of learning beside you and from you. With deep trust, ultimate respect, and the highest of expectations, I tip my hat to you. Let's go Peacock Blue.