Embrace the uncertainty: Advice for graduates from UCLA’s commencement speakers

"Now for the obligatory section where I give you some life advice." - UCLA College commencement speaker Randall Park, 2023

Commencement addresses are a milestone and a memory, the oratorial signature of an influential honoree.

In this sentimental season, listeners might magnify, minimize or miss the message entirely.

Still, there are pearls to be found in graduation oration. Here are a few from UCLA commencement speakers at recent ceremonies.

Advice for graduates entering a changing world

Randall Park

Be kind in an edgy world, 2023

"It's a tough thing to be in this very broken world where the algorithm was seemingly designed to keep us on edge. I believe that treating others with kindness is a small, simple and effective way of making the world a better place."

With irreverent style and egoless wit, actor and comedian Randall Park recognized life's cartoonishly Sisyphean nature. He wrapped with a joke about meeting Mother Teresa in a fiery afterlife, where she tells him "I tried to get into heaven, but that place is harder to get into than UCLA." He wrapped with a hope for a better tomorrow, where Mother Teresa urges him "Let's turn this hell into a heaven."

Jaime Camil

Embrace the uncomfortable, 2023

"I ask you today with an open heart that you embrace ignorance, fear and uncertainty every day because that will save your life, will make you resilient, will give you the need to explore, research and investigate those things that make you fearful or uncomfortable."

Jaime Camil, a celebrated Mexican-American actor, singer and television host, posed a counterintuitive idea when he spoke at the 50th Latinx commencement ceremony in 2023. With self-deprecating humor, he appealed for open-mindedness.

Sara Bareilles

Pain is a teacher, 2025

"When [life] is complicated and thorny, and when it inevitably breaks your heart, which it will, I hope you can reach for the wisdom in that, too. Pain is a skillful teacher if we stay willing and awake to the infinite nature of all of it."

As a top-selling recording artist, Sara Bareilles is used to being listened to. Still, she acknowledged writer's block in preparing her remarks to UCLA College's class of 2025. She came through with wisdom born of a sorrowful time - the loss of a dear friend.

♪ In UCLA Magazine's Spring 2026 issue: Sara Bareilles' Love Song to UCLA

David Roussève

Life advice in air quotes, 2025

"Wherever you think you are going, the one thing I can assure you is that it is the one place you absolutely will not end up. Life will upend your journey. Love will force you to move 3,000 miles away."

With characteristic modesty, David Roussève told School of the Arts and Architecture grads they could consider his words "advice" only if the word had air quotes around it. The distinguished professor emeritus of choreography urged his audience to blast forward into the unknown.

Career advice in the artificial intelligence age

David Schaberg

Keep it complicated, 2024

"Your readiness to see things anew and to see for yourselves can protect you against some of the seductions of simplemindedness that beset our age."

"Keep things complicated, keep things nuanced, keep things human."

The letter "I" doesn't often follow the letter "a" in standard English. When both are capitalized into a newly ubiquitous acronym, the world tenses in anticipation of drastic change. In what now seems like a prescient call for complexity and nuance, Professor David Schaberg advised Humanities grads to keep things humanly complicated.

Full speeches can be found on UCLA's commencement playlist.