Oprah Winfrey’s Harvard

Commencement Speech

In Oprah Winfrey’s Harvard Commencement Speech,

like most graduation speeches aims to inspire the new
graduates to enter the world with confidence and
optimism. She encourages the graduates to force
themselves to think the same way about failure as she
does, or not see a lack of success as failure. For many, it
will be the first time experiencing the real world, so she
encourages all in the audience to not only redefine
failure and hardship but also use their acquired
knowledge for the benefit of all people. Oprah uses
humor, optimism and inspiration, and life stories to help
her audience understand how to define and overcome
their own failures. In her call to action, Oprah talks
about a little boy who became a quadruple amputee but
overcame this struggle and joined his school lacrosse
team. Upon hearing about the victims of the Boston
Marathon, he created a fundraiser “to raise $1 million
for other amputees”. She also mentions a 9-year-old girl
who collected change “to help other people in need.” By
including these similar anecdotes in her speech it shows
that anyone can make a difference, even those without a
lot of power or education behind them. This inspired
those with a Harvard education to realize their potential
and never settle until they have made a positive
influence on another’s life. By ending her speech
mentioning these two devoted children, she inspires all
to find the innocence and compassion of a little kid and
pour their passion for whatever they majored in. Using
anecdotes, Oprah calls the Harvard class of 2013 to go
out into the world and find a way to help people using
their own influence. Having Harvard on their resume
will act as an important calling card, Winfrey told the
new graduates. But she urged each of them to build a
resume that is not just a collection of titles, but is based
on a “story that is really about your purpose, because
when you inevitably stumble and find yourself stuck in
a hole, that is the story that will get you out.”
As Harvard graduates, she told the audience, they are
able to understand the nation’s difficult challenges, such
as a polarized electorate plagued by cynicism, the lack
of a fair path to citizenship for 12 million
undocumented immigrants, and a lagging public
education system.

She also mentioned to have more face-to face

conversations with people you disagree with, she urged
the Facebook and Twitter generation. Personal
interactions are critical to keeping dialogue open, to
helping people remember what it’s like to be in
someone else’s shoes, and to validating others’ points
of view.
After every interview she conducts, Winfrey said,
presidents and performers alike ask her the same
question: “Was that OK?” What they really want to
know, she said, is: “Did you hear me? Do you see me?
Did what I say mean anything to you?”

The end