Famous Commencement Speeches

Pre-College Issues High School Life
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<p>Well folks, graduation is coming ever closer and we'll be done with high school for good. Your commencement speaker, maybe your principal, maybe your valedictorian, will say inspiring things that may or may not impact you personally- but until that day, I say we inspire ourselves a bit.</p>

<p>Allow me to share two commencement speeches- one for a graduating college class, and one you may be familiar with that was never actually delivered, but turned into a song. They're both pretty cool to listen to as you go about doing those last few projects.</p>

<p>The first is "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", a spoken word song based on an essay someone did in the Chicago Tribune. There are a few versions floating around, but this version is my favorite:
YouTube</a> - Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)</p>

<p>The second is by a now diseased literary professor, David Foster Wallace. It's a lot more serious, but you'll get a lot more out of it.
<a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/16985213/Dfw-Commencement%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.scribd.com/doc/16985213/Dfw-Commencement&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Anyone ever hear of a commencement speech that has inspired you? Share it, and feel free to share your thoughts on the above.</p>

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<p>My sister’s graduation from USC: Neil Armstrong. His speech was so inspiring. I am so glad I got to see it in person, amazing.</p>

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<p>Someone once sent me a link to a fantastic HS graduation speech on Youtube that brilliantly uses an extensive pokemon analogy/metaphor. It’s really quite something.</p>

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<p>[YouTube</a> - Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA)</p>

<p>3 million views says something</p>