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Taylor Swift’s NYU Commencement Speech: Read the Full Transcript

The pop star was honored with an honorary doctorate at NYU's Spring 2022 graduation ceremony.

By Hannah Dailey

Hannah Dailey

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If you heard some sort of deafening explosion-type sound emanating from somewhere on the East coast around 12:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday (May 18), don’t freak out — it was merely a stadium full of college graduates cheering with what must have been a record-breaking volume in response to Taylor Swift taking the microphone at NYU’s 2022 commencement ceremony to simply say, “Hi, I’m Taylor.”

Taylor Swift

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The 32-year-old singer-songwriter was the official guest of honor at the university’s spring graduation, taking place this year at New York City’s Yankee Stadium where tens of thousands of newly diplomaed people welcomed Swift with high-decibel cheers. Just a couple beats after accepting an honorary fine arts doctorate, she stepped up to the podium to charge the school’s graduates with a 20-minute speech in which she urged them to not be afraid to be enthusiastic and try hard when it comes to the things they love, before reminding them to accept that they will inevitably make mistakes as they go forward with their post-college lives.  

Taylor Swift Rocks Her First Cap and Gown in NYU Commencement Address Prep Video

And in true Taylor fashion, she also spared a couple moments to poke fun at herself and reference a couple of her most fitting songs.

“Let me just say: Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you,” she said with a smirk at the beginning of her address, and at the end: “So let’s just keep dancing like we’re … the class of ’22.”

Read Taylor Swift’s full speech from NYU’s 2022 commencement ceremony, then watch it below, beginning at about the two-hour, 47-minute mark.

Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.    I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU‘s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’. And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022.   Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass.’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination.    I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you.    I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.   I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.    As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last 4 years, right?   But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.   So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.    So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.   The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.    Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’   I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.    And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.    I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down.    As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news : It’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: It’s totally up to you.   I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails.’ That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life.    This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life.    And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.   The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’    Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.    I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat.  And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.   I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.    Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.

How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. 

Scary news is: You’re on your own now.

Cool news is: You’re on your own now.   I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.    As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.    I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re…   … the class of ’22.

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Read Taylor Swift’s Inspiring Speech for NYU’s Class of ’22

By Brittany Spanos

Brittany Spanos

Taylor Swift received a warm welcome to New York University on Wednesday when she accepted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from the institution. Swift attended the 2022 all-school commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium and delivered a rousing speech for this year’s graduates. 

Earlier this year, Swift was the subject of a half-semester course at NYU (taught by the author of this post) in the Clive Davis Institute of Recording Arts. The majority of the 20-person class were studying to either be recording artists or work in the music industry, and the curriculum provided a close analysis of both Swift’s songwriting as well as her career trajectory during one of the most quickly evolving periods in music history. 

Since releasing  Red (Taylor’s Version) — her re-recorded take on her lauded fourth album — Swift has largely laid low. She has yet to confirm which of her albums she’ll be re-recording next, though many have suspected that it will be 1989 or  Speak Now . Earlier this year, a new song titled “ Carolina ” was teased in the trailer for  Where the Crawdads Sing . Her only release of 2022 so far has been the re-recorded version of 1989 cut “ This Love ,” which appeared in the trailer for  The Summer I Turned Pretty . 

In June, Swift will make an appearance at Tribeca Film Festival for a special screening of  All Too Well: The Short Film at New York City’s Beacon Theater and then will sit down for a conversation about writing, directing and producing it. She’ll also make her first film appearance since 2019’s  Cats  in David O. Russell’s star-studded film  Amsterdam . It’ll hit theaters in November.

Taylor Swift’s Full NYU Commencement Speech  

Hi, I’m Taylor.

“As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm.”

“You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go.”

“The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”

“My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience.”

“Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.”

How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t.

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4 profound lessons from Taylor Swift’s NYU commencement speech

Imagine sitting in a packed stadium, all draped in your cap and robe after pushing through harrowing circumstances to arrive at this moment. Then one of the world’s most recognisable faces, whose songs probably got you through pandemic breakups and lockdown woes, gracefully strides onto the stage to deliver a historic commencement speech. It’s Taylor Swift — and she’s here for your graduation. 

That’s what students of New York University (NYU) were treated to on Wednesday, in a “doubleheader” ceremony honouring the Classes of 2020, 2021, and 2022 at a jam-packed Yankee Stadium. The singer-songwriter was there to receive a Doctor of Fine Arts , “ honoris causa” degree from the university, among other illustrious honourees. 

Calling all Swifties — @nyuniversity is offering a course on all things Taylor Swift! Find out more (and see if you can spot the hidden lyrics!) here: #NYU #TaylorSwift https://t.co/lMkaeURI0m — Study International (@Study_INTNL) February 9, 2022

Having an eleven-time Grammy Award winner deliver the commencement address was exciting to say the least, and the crowd let out an ear-splitting shrill the moment she said, “ Hi, I’m Taylor. ” Filled with humour, wit, and poignancy, it was a speech that graduates very much needed to hear, one that only Swift could have delivered to drive the message home. 

Here are some sage advice to heed on life and learning from the pop princess herself, even if you’re not a Swiftie:

Taylor Swift’s advice on winning at life 

You’re never truly alone .

Swift opened her speech by acknowledging the people who’ve been crucial to her success, and emphasised that it often takes a village to get to where we are. “W e are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear,” she said. 

Here's how Taylor Swift helped an international student realise her study abroad dream: #StudyAbroad #GoFundMe https://t.co/1PwQL4Ixis pic.twitter.com/cuj8wdqKVZ — Study International (@Study_INTNL) July 18, 2021

The 32-year-old singer then reminded the crowd to express gratitude and honour the people that were the backbone to their educational journey. Swift herself thanked her parents and brother for their sacrifices over the years, a long road that saw her “singing in coffee houses” to becoming one of the best-selling musicians of all time imparting advice to a group of high-achieving graduates, despite never going to college herself.

Swift, who never went to college, was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by New York University (NYU) on Wednesday. Source: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images North America/Getty Images via AFP

“Normal” is overrated 

There are different paths in life, and Taylor Swift herself is a testament to how conventionality is overhyped. “I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until 10th grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals,” she mused. Being a songstress and teen icon early in her career came with compromises, one that included forgoing college. 

She was quick to not make it about herself, highlighting the plight of students who were also den ied a sense of normalcy in surviving a pandemic. “I im agine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get.” 

While not all less-travelled roads lead to musical superstardom, Swift’s advice reminds us that there’s no one fixed path or rulebook to get to where we’re meant to be. 

“My mistakes lead to the best things in my life, and being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience,” Swift remarked in her speech. Source: Angela Weiss/AFP

Embrace your “cringe” 

The weightier part of Taylor Swift’s speech centred around acceptance, to let certain things go as we flip the pages of life’s chapters that have yet to be written. “Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once,” said the singer. “Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them.” 

As someone whose persona has always been highly-publicised to feed gossip fodder, Swift took a jab at herself by talking about her “cringe” moments — failed relationships, questionable fashion trends, and getting “cancelled” on the internet. “Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime…You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to.” Far from being self-deprecating, Swift used her mishaps as teachable moments to move forward on her own terms. 

Swift’s commencement speech was filled with equal parts humour and wisdom as she capped her delivery with a hopeful note. Source: Angela Weiss/AFP

We get to decide our own life

Swift’s speech ended on a hopeful note about writing our own stories and venturing into the unknown. “I really do think we are all writers,” she reflected, talking about coming-of-age through songwriting and how we use different mediums to chart our course life. “We are all literary chameleons, and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time.” 

The singer passionately highlighted the love she’s always had for her craft, and hours of creativity that eventually took flight into chart-topping hits. “We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I…Anyway, hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.”

It was self-belief that got Swift through the worst of times in her career, which graduates would do well to emulate as they venture into new territories outside of school. 

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‘Dr.’ Taylor Swift has advice for NYU’s Class of 2022: Get comfortable with cringe

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Welcome to New York University, Taylor Swift. It’s been waiting for you.

On Wednesday, the celebrated pop singer-songwriter was one of multiple speakers at NYU’s 2022 commencement ceremony at Yankee Stadium. The Grammy winner , who never attended college, also received an honorary doctorate.

Wearing a black velvet cap and purple graduation gown for the first time, Swift proudly accepted her Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa. The graduating class of 2022 erupted in cheers and applause as the “Folklore” artist took the stage.

“I’m 90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22,’” Swift, 32, joked.

Rounding out this year’s honorary degree recipients were trailblazing neuroscientist Susan Hockfield and City University of New York Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez.

Here’s Swift’s full commencement speech, which received a standing ovation.

“Hi, I’m Taylor. Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.

I would like to say a huge thank you to NYU’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible.

I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees, Susan Hockfield and Félix Matos Rodríguez, who humbled me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m 90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ’22.’

And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s class of 2022.

Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness — or told us the truth, even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that.

Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you as you asked a bazillion questions like, ‘How does the moon work?’ and, ‘Why can we eat salad but not grass?’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore. In that case, I hope you’ll remember them today.

If they are in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination I know that words are supposed to be my thing, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and dad, my brother Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day, so I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today, because no words would ever be enough.

To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now, ‘ Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you .’

I’d like to thank NYU for making me, technically, on paper at least, a doctor — not the type of doctor you would want around in case of an emergency. Unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or, if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.

I never got to have a normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until 10th grade and then finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road for radio tour — which sounds incredibly glamorous, but in reality, it consisted of a rental car, motels and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother-daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.

As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I would hang on the wall of my freshman dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song ‘Love Story’ at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and — with one single glance — we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last four years, right?

But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you. Because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms and having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores. But on top of that, you also had to pass like 1,000 COVID tests.

I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case, you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get.

And as I would like to say to you wholeheartedly, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today, you leave New York University and then go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.

So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation to impart whatever wisdom I might have, to tell you things that have helped me so far in my life. Please bear in mind that I in no way feel qualified to tell you what to do.

You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today, and so you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.

So, I won’t tell you what to do, because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.

The first of which is: Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is: Knowing what things to keep and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started.

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Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes, the good things in your life are lighter anyway. So there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many, wonderful simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.

Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term cringe might someday be deemed cringe. I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to.

For example, I had a phase where — for the entirety of 2012 — I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun. And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm, but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things.

It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of unbothered ambivalence. This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to want it. The people who don’t try are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know — because I’ve done a lot of things, but I’ve never been an expert on chic. But I’m the one who’s up here, so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying.

Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it the most are the people I now hire to work for my company.

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I started writing songs when I was 12, and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life. And in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or short films, creating the visuals for a tour or standing on a stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft.

The thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end, editing. Waking up in the middle of the night, throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a new or better one, or a plot device that ties the whole thing together.

There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me, and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down. As a songwriter, I’ve never been able to sit still or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and, in the process, I’ve switched genre from country to pop to alternative to folk.

And this might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion. But in a way, I really do think we are all writers, and most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home.

We are all literary chameleons, and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming, figuring out who to be and when, who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: It’s totally up to you. I have some terrifying news: It’s totally up to you.

I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it. And now I will tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice.

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Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, media, interviewers, executives. And this advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings.

See, I was a teenager at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day running off the rails. And that meant a different thing to every person who said it to me.

So, I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire Earth would fall off its axis, and it would be entirely my fault. That I would go to pop-star jail forever and ever.

It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and, ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life. This has not been my experience.

My experience has been that my mistakes lead to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up, it’s part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it — that’s a gift.

The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut — looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told yes.

Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely. But because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music, and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home.

But then I posted my songs on my MySpace — yes, MySpace — and I would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation.

But it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and 20s. But it taught me to protect my private life fiercely.

Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful, but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute-by-minute, ever-fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.

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I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today, graduating from NYU.

So this might be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong person, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self-sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat.

And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.

Now, you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice, which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know which path to take.

There will be times in life where you need to stand up for yourself, times when the right thing is actually to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have, times to let go with grace.

Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to sit and listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments?

You won’t. How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. The scary news is: You’re on your own now. But the cool news is: You’re on your own now.

I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the internet.

Anyway, hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. And as long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I am a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.

I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re the Class of ’22.”

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Here’s what Taylor Swift said during her NYU graduation speech

Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift spoke about hard work, the importance of learning from mistakes, and her song “22” at the class of 2022 commencement exercises.

Manasa Gudavalli

Taylor Swift hugs NYU president Andy Hamilton. (Staff Photo by Manasa Gudavalli)

Rachel Fadem , Features Editor May 18, 2022

Taylor Swift spoke at NYU’s 188th commencement ceremony after receiving an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree on May 18. She delivered a speech to the class of 2022 at the Wednesday morning ceremony on behalf of the honorary doctorate recipients: Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Susan Hockfield, City University of New York chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez and herself.

“Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard,” Swift said at the beginning of her speech.“ This outfit is much more comfortable.”

After thanking NYU administrators, Swift said she was proud to be celebrated alongside her fellow honorary degree recipients and that they humble her with the work they do to improve the world.

“I’m 90% sure that the reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22,’” Swift said.

We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us. Those who have believed in our futures. Those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear.

— Taylor Swift

Jason King, the chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music of the Tisch School of the Arts, presented Swift with her degree. NYU president Andrew Hamilton spoke about Swift’s accomplishments prior to her speech. 

“You are a role model across the world for your unprecedented talent, your fierce advocacy for protection of those facing discrimination, and your commitment to speaking out forcefully, eloquently and effectively on behalf of all artists,” Hamilton said.

Swift thanked NYU for giving her the opportunity to be a doctor — at least on paper.

“Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency,” she said. “Unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section.”

The singer and producer emphasized that NYU students could not have accomplished what they have without support from friends and family. She asked students to express their gratitude for those who have helped them and forgive those who have made mistakes along the way.

“We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us,” Swift said. “Those who have believed in our futures. Those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that.”

Reflecting on her own education, Swift noted that she never had a normal college experience, but that she drew upon the traditional university experience for some of her music. She then acknowledged that NYU’s class of 2022 also did not have a typical college experience either due to COVID-19.

Although Swift said she tries not to give unsolicited advice, she considered her commencement address an exception.

“ Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release,” she said. “Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go… You get to pick what your life has time and room for.”

The singer encouraged students to embrace one part of life she said will happen to everyone — cringe.

“Learn to live alongside cringe,” she said. “No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime.”

Swift said the mistakes she has made have taught her lessons and led to some of her favorite experiences in life. She encouraged the class of 2022 to take risks and be resilient in the face of failure.

“Being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience,” she said. “Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.”

Swift said that even though the class of 2022 did not get everything they wished for during their time at NYU, she wanted to encourage them to embrace the work they have accomplished.

“You should be very proud of what you’ve done with it,” Swift said. “Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.”

Contact Rachel Fadem at [email protected] .

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Rachel Fadem is a senior majoring in journalism and gender studies. On the extremely rare occasion that she isn't working, she can be found at a coffee...

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Taylor Swift Delivers NYU Commencement Address at Yankee Stadium: Read the Complete Speech

By Chris Willman

Chris Willman

Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic

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“I’m 90% sure the reason I’m here is because I have a song called ’22,'” quipped Taylor Swift , delivering the commencement address for New York University ‘s class of 2022 at a graduation ceremony held Wednesday. The pop superstar was awarded an honorary doctorate before giving a playful and reflective speech that lasted… no, not 22, but a little over 23 minutes.

“Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard,” Swift noted. “This outfit is much more comfortable.”

Swift did not allude to many of her hit songs during the address, but did give in to the inevitable when she told out-of-town friends and relatives of the graduates, “Let me say to you now: Welcome to New York — it’s been waiting for you.”

She continued, “I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, at paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.” (Scroll down to read the address in its entirety.)

Swift received her Doctor of Fine Arts honor from Jason King, chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, part of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. King drew an extra-loud amount of applause — and a goofy/triumphant facial expression from Swift — when, among the list of recordings he mentioned as among her accomplishments, he mentioned “two re-recorded studio albums.” That was in reference to the “Taylor’s Version” series of albums she embarked upon after splitting from Big Machine; he further mentioned how Swift has “fearlessly challenged the exploitation of music artists” in her career.

Popular on Variety

Swift congratulated the graduates for getting through under unusual circumstances, “essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted, too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it.”

Contrasting herself with the grads’ histories of formal education, the singer-songwriter noted that she did drop out of formal schooling after the 10th grade, at which point the rest of her high school consisted of her mother home-schooling her while they sat on the floors of airports as Swift went out on radio tours. These weeks-long visits to country radio stations consisted, she said, of “a rental car, motels and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother-daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.”

Moving on to what she called “unsolicited advice” that might have actually been solicited by NYC, Swift urged the graduating students to “learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term cringe might someday be deemed cringe. ” She promised that even some of the things students are doing or wearing today are things they will “find revolting and hilarious… For example, I had a phase where, for the entirely of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.”

On a more serious note, she said, “I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma of eagerness in our culture of unbothered ambivalence. … Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”

Swift told the grads that all of them are writers, to some extent, like she is. “I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process switched rom country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very singer-songwriter-focused line of attention.” But, she said, “You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do in your thesis… We are all literary chameleons, and I think it’s fascinating.”

The singer touched at length on backlashes she has received since being in the public eye starting at the age of 15. “Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails’. … I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life. This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life… Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.”

Alluding to the period in which much of America seemed to be taking sides in what was seen as a war of credibility between her and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, she admitted: “Getting canceled on the Internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.”

“I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU,” she said. “In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time — rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”

“As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe through, breath deep and breathe out. And I am a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.”

In conclusion, Swift said, harking back to that “Red”-era numerical hit, “Let’s keep dancing like we’re the class of ’22.”

Earlier in the morning, Swift posted to Instagram and TikTok a short montage showing herself traveling through New York before and after donning her cap and gown, and of her father taking snapshots of her in her graduation gear.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

Three graduating classes are being honoroed today. Swift is part of what is described as a “traditional” ceremony for the current graduating class on the morning of May 18. Separately, in the evening, the university will be holding a “double-header” commencement for the classes of 2020 and 2021, who weren’t able to have a traditional ceremony earlier due to the pandemic.

Disability rights activist Judith Heumann will address the graduates at Yankee Stadium at the evening ceremony. Heumann was featured in the film “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,” which was nominated fo best documentary at last year’s Oscars. She is the author of the 2020 book “Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist” and produces the podcast “The Heumann Perspective,” which features members of the disability community. Other honorary degree recipients include Lonnie Bunch III, Susan Hockfield, Jill Lepore, and Félix Matos Rodríguez.

Swift’s complete speech:

Hi, I’m Taylor.

Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.

I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU‘s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’. And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022.

Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass’. And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination.

I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you.

I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.

I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.

As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last 4 years, right?

But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.

So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.

So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.

The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.

Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe’.

I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.

And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence’. This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it’. That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic’. But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.

I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down.

As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: it’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: it’s totally up to you.

I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails’. That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life.

This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life.

And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift.

The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes’.

Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35 year old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13 year old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.

I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.

I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.

Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t. How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t.

Scary news is: you’re on your own now. Cool news is: You’re on your own now.

I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover.

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Taylor Swift Delivers Commencement Speech: 'Cringe is Unavoidable'

Senior Reporter, HuffPost

Welcome to New York ... University’s commencement speaker, Taylor Swift .

The 32-year-old singer-songwriter delivered a heartwarming speech for NYU’s graduating classes during the 2022 ceremony on Wednesday, where she also received an honorary doctor of fine arts degree.

“Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable,” she joked in her opening remarks while dressed in the school’s violet graduation attire. “I am 90% sure I am here because I have a song called ‘22.’”

Before she took the stage at Yankee Stadium, Swift shared a peek of her preparation for the day on Instagram, writing alongside a video, “Wearing a cap and gown for the very first time - see you soon NYU 🥺🥰🗽.”

Given Swift’s breakout success as a teenager, she never went to college or completed high school in a traditional sense, as she was homeschooled for both her junior and senior years.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

In her speech, Swift expressed gratitude to the “patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures,” including her own family for their support and sacrifices over the years.

Despite recognizing that she is in no way “qualified to tell you what to do,” the music superstar went on to offer the crowd various “life hacks,” including some lessons from her ups and downs in the music industry.

“Learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively,” she said before poking fun at how she “dressed like a 1950s housewife” for the entirety of 2012. “Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’”

Swift then encouraged the graduates to embrace, not avoid the obstacles that inevitably lie ahead, as she’s found that “mistakes led to the best things in my life.”

“Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am,” she said. “Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and 20s, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely.”

Seemingly making reference to the backlash she received due to her yearslong feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian , Swift continued, “Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful, but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute-by-minute, ever-fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.”

Swift concluded her speech by offering some final words of encouragement, while also joking about her honorary doctorate.

“We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I,” she said. “And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the internet.”

“As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.”

Swift’s songwriting and evolution as an artist were the focus of a class that Rolling Stone reporter Brittany Spanos taught this year at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music.

In the press release announcing Swift as the school’s commencement speaker, the university hailed her as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation” and the only female artist in history to win the music industry’s highest honor, the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, three times.”

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Taylor Swift Addresses Class Of 2022 In Heartfelt NYU Commencement Speech

By Rebekah Gonzalez

May 18, 2022

Taylor Swift attended New York University's graduation ceremony on Wednesday, May 18 . During the 2022 ceremony at the legendary Yankee Stadium, Swift received an honorary Doctorate of fine arts from the prestigious university and delivered a heartfelt commencement speech. NYU has previously offered a course at the Clive Davis Institue that went in-depth on Swift's contributions to music.

"Hi, I’m Taylor. The last time I was in a stadium this size I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable," the Grammy winner opened her speech. She then went on to bring up the coincidence of her addressing the class of 2022 and the lyrics of one of her most well-known songs. "...I'm ninety percent sure that the main reason I'm here is because I have a song called “22.”

Later on in the speech, Swift made a cheeky, and appropriate, reference to another one of her hit songs "Welcome To New York." "To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students and their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now, ‘Welcome to New York it's been waiting for you," she said to applause.

"I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: it’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: it’s totally up to you." - @taylorswift13 pic.twitter.com/Y8mEwqgdZw — New York University (@nyuniversity) May 18, 2022

Her speech was full of life advice, encouraging the young NYU graduates to "learn to live alongside cringe." She poked a bit of fun at herself to drive her point home. "For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun."

She bookended her heartfelt speech in the perfect way:   "I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re... The class of 22."

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Taylor Swift Receives Doctorate From NYU, Gives Inspiring Commencement Speech

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Taylor Swift gave the commencement address at New York University’s graduation and picked up an honorary Doctorate of the Arts for her contributions to the music industry on Wednesday.

Taylor Swift "wore a cap and gown for the first time" during her commencement address at New York University’s graduation ceremony.

The ‘All Too Well’ hitmaker was also given a honorary doctorate of fine arts at the ceremony — joining the likes of Aretha Franklin and Billy Crystal — as she addressed the 2020, 2021, and 2022 graduating classes at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday (May 18), the first in-person event of its kind at the university since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 32-year-old singer-songwriter marked the occasion on her Instagram, writing: “Wearing a cap and gown for the very first time — see you soon NYU [big eye emoji, heart face emoji and Lady Liberty emoji],” in the caption of a video showing her getting ready in her purple cap and gown and getting her picture taken by her father, Scott Swift. 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift)

While speaking to the crowd, Swift joked her cap and gown were “much more comfortable” than the clothes she usually wore when performing to similar-sized audiences on similar stages.

She said: “Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in high heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.”

The Grammy winner also quipped that she was only there because her 2012 hit single ‘22’, which matched the current calendar year.

Taylor said: “I’m 90 per cent sure the reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’.”

The ‘I Bet You Think About Me’ singer urged the graduating class that they should “learn to live alongside cringe” as it is an “unavoidable” part of life, citing her fashion choices from a decade ago.

Swift continued: “You will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over the course of a lifetime... You can’t avoid it so don’t try to – for the entirety of 2012 I dressed like a 1950s housewife.”

The ‘Love Story’ hitmaker also spoke about the challenges of being a young woman in the music industry, such as “constantly being issued warnings” and how she felt that needed to be the “perfect young female role model” or else she would end up in “pop star jail”.

She also mentioned getting “cancelled” — when Kanye West and his then-wife Kim Kardashian alleged that she was lying about consenting to lyrics on his 2016 track ‘Famous’ — and how it gave her “excellent knowledge” of her wine rack.

She said: “Getting cancelled on the internet and almost losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.”

Watch Swift's commencement speech here (cue to the 2:50:38 mark):

— BANG SHOWBIZ

Photos: TPG News/Click Photos, Taylor Swift/Instagram

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Rhetorical Analysis Practice: Taylor Swift's Commencement Graduation Speech

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Rhetorical analysis doesn't have to only be powerpoint presentations on ethos, pathos, and logos. By using this inspiring, engaging, high-energy, and fame-filled graduation speech from Taylor Swift, students will practice rhetoric while gaining valuable life advice and having a conversation about college!

THIS PRODUCT INCLUDES:

• A student handout. Students will use the tool SPACE CAT for initial discoveries of the rhetorical situation and the choices. Students then will annotate the speech for rhetorical choices, rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) and tone. Finally, teachers may choose to use the ending table to keep a record of the items that were discovered and annotated during the discussion.
• Three general discussion questions are provided to guide a conversation after listening to the speech.
• A full answer key with guidance and suggestions for the teacher to follow.

You might also be interested in these other resources from Mud and Ink Teaching:

• Choose Your Own Adventure - Narrative Writing
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• Reading Activities for Book Clubs & Lit Circles

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© Mud and Ink Teaching Please note - this resource is for use by one teacher only. Additional teachers must purchase their own licenses. If you are interested in purchasing several licenses, please let me know. Good luck on your adventurous teaching journey!

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Published December 20, 2023

Five Pieces of Advice to College Applicants from Taylor Swift’s NYU Commencement Address

Staff Writer

College applications are tough. Here are snippets of Taylor Swift’s 2022 NYU Commencement Speech that you can use to motivate you through this challenging yet  rewarding process! Are you…Ready For It?

Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once.

You’ve got a lot coming up! Holidays, depending on what you celebrate, time with family, a new year, and college applications . Don’t try to carry it all at once. Cross your NYU application off the list so you have one less thing to carry.

Learn to live alongside cringe.

If what’s holding you back from pressing “submit” is that your essay feels a little too personal (or maybe all business and not personal enough?), if you’re worried its oozing violet or putting it all out on the line might not get you the results you’re hoping for…just go for it.

Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth.

Enough said, right?

Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us.

You might need a second set of eyes on your application before you hit submit. Maybe a parent, a teacher, an older cousin who has been through it before. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or guidance during this important time.

Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform.

You might be the best judge of whether your application represents your hard work and experience in a way that’s authentically you – even if it doesn’t fit the mold that folks have guided you towards.

Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out.

That was a bonus piece of advice.

For even more inspiration for your application, watch Dr. Taylor Swift's NYU commencement here!

Need to start your NYU application? Click here!

First-semester, college advice: mastering the nyu experience.

Advice for first-year students, from managing your money to studying effectively.

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College apps leaving you feeling “happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time?" Escape into Taylor Swift’s discography while applying to NYU!

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There are a number of popular myths and misconceptions about life on NYU’s New York City campus. Current Tandon student Hridayesha separates fact from fiction.

Every Word of Taylor Swift’s NYU Commencement Speech: ‘You Will Screw It Up Sometimes. So Will I.’

Taylor Swift became a doctor today—technically, earning her honorary doctorate from New York University with the graduating class of 2022. Swift shared a video of herself en route to the graduation ceremony, where she was the commencement speaker.

And Swift gave one of her most honest, inspiring speeches yet, adding cheeky comments about her songs and career here and there, along with some very good and truthful life advice.

Swift at one point poignantly addressed how everyone will make mistakes as they go through life: “I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not,” she started. “I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”

Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable. I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90 percent sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22’. And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022. Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass.’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination. I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you. I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute. I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest. As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last four years, right? But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I. So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons. So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship. The first of which is: Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning. Secondly: Learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’ I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun. And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company. I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down. As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: It’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: It’s totally up to you. I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails.’ That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life. This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift. The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’ Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine. I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too. Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t. How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. Scary news is: You’re on your own now. Cool news is: You’re on your own now. I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works. I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re...the class of ’22.

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'learn to live alongside cringe': taylor swift delivers nyu commencement speech.

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Taylor Swift famously sang about "feeling 22." A decade later, she's celebrating it -- the class of '22, that is.

The prolific pop singer received an honorary doctorate of fine arts on Wednesday from New York University, and also delivered this year's commencement speech at Yankee Stadium .

"I'm 90% sure the main reason I'm here is because I have a song called '22'," she joked.

Despite not receiving a four-year college experience, Swift used her almost 20-minute speech to give the recent graduates "life hacks" on navigating post-graduate and early career life, including "life can be heavy," to "learn to live alongside cringe."

"Hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out," she said. "And I'm a doctor now, so I know how breathing works."

Swift was first announced as the commencement speaker for NYU back in March to mass excitement from fans of the 11-time Grammy winner. Some even tried to buy tickets to the ceremony from graduating students.

Prior to the graduation, NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music also featured an entire course on Taylor Swift this year, taught by Rolling Stone writer Brittany Spanos. The course covered Swift's rise to pop stardom, as well as her public persona.

Creative Insights From Taylor Swift's New Song

E xploring the transformative power of adversity and curiosity in fostering creativity with practical strategies for unlocking your creative potential.

In the closing tracks of her new album, The Tortured Poets Department , Taylor Swift introduces an electro-pop song titled "I Can Do It With a Broken Heart." Through this song, she candidly acknowledges that during the previous summer, while dazzling audiences on her historic Eras Tour, she was secretly grappling with inner turmoil despite outwardly portraying a picture-perfect image of living her best life.

Swift's candid revelation serves as a testament to the transformative power of channeling life's trials into sources of creativity, resilience, and imagination. It reminds us that within the depths of our own experiences, whether they are moments of triumph or adversity, exists the raw material to ignite our endeavors .

Given my frequent interactions with business audiences, a common inquiry resonates: " How can I enhance my creativity ?" The response hinges on recognizing that creativity isn't an exclusive attribute confined to a chosen few, such as Swift; rather, it's a cognitive skill that can be developed with deliberate practice . Here are three straightforward yet potent ways to unlock your creative potential.

1. Own your experiences

Beyond familial upbringing, education, and inherent characteristics, it's the trials and triumphs of life that mold your identity. Embracing and taking ownership of your experiences provides a springboard for personal growth and learning. Challenges become fertile soil for inspiration, offering unique and sometimes profound insights for creative expression.

Especially for small-business owners, your own obstacles yield invaluable insights into the concerns of others, shedding light on how your business or brand can offer solutions to address these challenges.

2. Cultivate curiosity

You've likely encountered this advice before, akin to the way therapists universally encourage patients to do breathing exercises. Yet, cultivating curiosity remains one of the most transformative practices you can adopt. Embrace inquiry, venture into uncharted territories of thought and embrace subjects or experiences you might typically shy away from.

Curiosity serves as the essential trait igniting innovation and fostering the birth of fresh ideas.

3. Challenge conventional thinking

Initially, I entertained the idea of naming one of my creativity books Kill the Pedestrian . As anticipated, the publisher opted for a different title. Nonetheless, the core concept persists: to defy conventional wisdom and mundane notions. In The New Art of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential (Penguin Random House, 2023), I advocate breaking away from traditional thought patterns, urging readers to question entrenched viewpoints. I champion embracing diverse perspectives, fostering interdisciplinary cooperation, reframing obstacles, and daring to venture into uncharted territories as pivotal strategies for unlocking innovative solutions.

Swift's candid introspection in her latest album emphasizes the profound connection between life's trials and creativity. Embracing our personal journeys, with all their ups and downs, becomes a wellspring of inspiration that fuels our business and creative endeavors. Furthermore, nurturing curiosity and daring to challenge the status quo are essential for fostering our creative essence.

For small-business leaders, owners and managers, creativity becomes a potent tool for overcoming obstacles, standing out in the market, and driving growth and success. By drawing on insights from personal experiences, fostering curiosity, and questioning entrenched beliefs, small businesses can approach challenges with fresh perspectives, uncovering imaginative solutions that may elude traditional methods.

This post originally appeared at inc.com .

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