Commencement

Congratulations! We are proud to now call you a Penn State engineer! We hope you are just as proud of your accomplishments. 

You have worked hard and achieved great things during your time in the College of Engineering, while simultaneously navigating the uncertainty and complexity of a global pandemic. By adapting to and persevering through an entirely different type of college experience for the last two years, you are now more prepared than ever to engineer solutions to our society’s greatest challenges.  

In the future, we will reflect on this time with a wide variety of perspectives and remembrances. I have no doubt that we will also reflect on the incredible innovations and inventions fueled by the lessons of this era.  

As a Penn State graduate, you have an engineering lineage stretching back more than 126 years supporting you as you embark on the next stage of your careers. You are poised for excellence, with all the tools you need to build and solve with the ultimate goal of making things better. Regardless of our specific discipline or technology, we all work to equitably and sustainably improve the world—and beyond—around us.  

And, as you know, you need collaboration to do this well. The varied viewpoints borne of difference experiences and trainings offer the best opportunity to pursue true innovation. You are the most diverse group of engineers to ever graduate from Penn State, with more experience and more interest in using non-engineering disciplines to solve engineering problems than ever before.  

Through such incredible inter- and multidisciplinary feats of engineering and science, we are recovering. It is thrilling to be able to gather in person and formally recognize your achievements. Even after graduation, please know you still have your community. The faculty, staff, and peers who have rooted for you since your first class—we are still here, we will always cheer for you, and we will continue to be here for you. You also have the might of the world’s largest alumni network continuing to support you.  

Graduation is always a curious blend of happy and sad as one adventure comes to a close, making way for the next one. You have made your impact on Penn State. Next up: the world.  

You have the power of change and the capacity for good. You have the knowledge and tools. You have the community. You are ready, and we cannot wait to see what you will do next.  

Justin Schwartz  
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean in the College of Engineering