“Columbia has undoubtedly changed me. My education has been dually humbling and exhilarating. Each day that I learned something new, I became increasingly aware of how much there is left to discover. Lit Hum taught me how to turn reading assignments into deeply personal explorations. Marketing management taught me that it’s not just what you say, but how you say it. Dance history taught me that everything performed today has roots in yesterday. Statistics taught me that facts vary with context. Oscar Wilde taught me that even the world’s best writers have their weaknesses. Psychology taught me that humans are wonderfully irrational.

“But Columbia has given me far more than an academic education. It has given me aspirations beyond what I knew to be possible and the mentors to guide me to these heights. It has given me colleagues to cheer for and friends to grow with. It has given me the tools to understand this world and the conviction to imagine a better one.

“Now, having been stripped of the traditionally extravagant senior-year celebrations, our most poignant memories will instead be the little moments that made our time together so meaningful. I may not ever get a photo with my friends in our caps and gowns, but we have plenty of ordinary ones of us around our dorms, our campus and the city. The shadows cast by these extraordinary circumstances have illustrated just how bright our ‘ordinary’ days were — and for that, I am grateful.

“Perhaps most importantly, these circumstances have given me a greater awareness of how different people have radically different experiences in the world. I think I’ve gained not just context, but also compassion. Thank you for everything, and may we always be there for one another.”