
Speaking to graduating seniors at Harvard’s Senior Class Day ceremony in 2014, American business executive and philanthropist Sheryl Sandberg expressed her wishes, and also made some pertinent points.
“There is no straight path from your seat today to where you are going. Don’t try to draw that line. You will not just get it wrong, you will miss big opportunities. And I mean big like the internet. Careers are not ladders. Those days are long gone, but jungle gyms. Don’t just move up and down. Don’t just look up, look backward, sideways, around corners. Your career and your life will have starts and stops and zigs and zags,” she said.
“Don’t stress out about the white space, the path you can’t draw because therein lies both the surprises and the opportunities. As you open yourself up to possibility, the most important thing I can tell you today is to open yourself up to honesty, to telling the truth to each other, to being honest with yourselves, and to being honest about the world we live in,” she said, concluding, “You can make the world fairer for everyone, expect honesty from yourself and each other, demand and create truly equal opportunity.”