Katie Breen
University of Maryland
Robert H. Smith School of Business
Commencement Address – May 20, 2012
I want to talk to you today about fear. Over the past few months, I have thought a lot about fear.
Recently, I have introduced myself to many people who, upon finding out that I’m a senior, ask
me, “Aren’t you afraid of the real world?”
Afraid? Sure, there are plenty of things to fear. Over the past four years, we have watched our
country struggle to recover from the greatest recession since the Great Depression. As we took
our first macroeconomics courses, we watched on the news as the government bailed out Wall
Street. We studied for our first finance exam as the subprime mortgage crisis claimed its victims.
We attended courses in Van Munching Hall by day and read textbooks by night, but the world was our
case study, and some of the most important lessons we learned were from the headlines.
Yes, there are challenges ahead of us.
But we are not afraid, because we have come of age in a time of fear. Because the Smith School
has taught us that success comes to those who don’t let fear stand in their way. We have been
given the skills to be leaders, innovators, and team players in the face of challenges big and
small. We have nothing to do but to embrace fear, and in our last four years here we have learned
to do just that, and will continue to do so as we look ahead.
Kurt Vonnegut captured our spirit - the Smith spirit - when he advised, “We have to be continually
jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”
Over the last four years here, I have witnessed the Class of 2012 practice living Vonnegut’s
advice. We braved our fears, not knowing what the outcome would be, and rose to the occasion
day in and day out. We took courses we didn’t think we could succeed in, and they changed our
perspectives and career paths. We studied abroad in countries whose languages we did not
speak, and we adapted. We took on leadership positions we weren’t sure we could handle, and
we changed this campus.
We pushed ourselves into the unknown, and whether the graduates here today succeeded or not,
we learned from our successes and our failures. It took those leaps of faith to prove to ourselves
that we are indeed stronger and more capable than we ever knew and to develop into the leaders
that we have become at Smith. Our real education over the past four years here has been to
discover the importance of fear - and the even greater importance of not giving into it.
Class of 2012, I am confident that just as we have done over the past four years at the Smith
School, we will continue to jump off cliffs and develop our wings on the way down in order to face
head-on the fear that abounds in the “real world.” In fact, as students who have been equipped
with a world-class education in the midst of worldwide uncertainty, it is in our nature to do so.
What is ahead of us may be unknown, but Smith has taught us to embrace fear, Smith has taught
us to use fear, and Smith has taught us to learn from fear. Doing so takes healthy doses of both
audacity and humility. We may embarrass ourselves, but we can’t let our fear of looking like fools
prevent us from pursuing an opportunity that we may later feel like fools for missing out on. Smith
taught us that we will probably never be the smartest in the room. Smith taught us to challenge
ourselves by surrounding ourselves with people who know more than we do, people whom we
respect, and maybe even people who are so smart that we don’t even feel we belong in the same
room as them. And to then listen and learn.
These situations we will discover are the ones where we will grow the most. We must find
something we’re afraid of doing and do it with all our might. If we fall, fall hard, fall fast, and fall
forward. The only thing to be afraid of is letting our fears get in the way of conquering the goals
that are important to us. This is what the past four years have taught us.
During our time at Smith, we have matured on a steady diet of uncertainty. Our
professors empowered us with the tools to face an uncertain world, preparing us with Vonnegut’s
ability to jump off cliffs and develop our wings on the way down. Thus we thank the Smith School in fact, this entire university - for preparing us to celebrate this day. As we face the challenges that
we know will confront us throughout our careers and the rest of our lives, we will continually be
jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.