Trustees of Dartmouth College,

Overseers of the Tuck School of Business,

Dean Danos,

Dean Hansen,

Dean Jaeger,

Dean Lubrano,

Dean Slaughter,

Dean Paquette,

(I hope I listed all the deans. If you’re a Tuck dean and I didn’t mention your name, I’ll give you your money back.)

Mr. Lane,

Honoured guests,

Distinguished faculty,

Dear friends and family,

Dear class,

Either this is a very special occasion, or our fashion taste could use some updating.

Today, we’re saying goodbye to our student lives and going back to the real world for good. But then again, we made that same promise last time we were graduating. So we won’t get too melodramatic. Some of us might cry, but that’s just going through the emotions.

Let’s take a cold, analytical look back at our two years at Tuck: the courses, dorms, atmosphere, study groups and faculty. 

The courses are usually called “Strategic something” or “Something for managers”. They take place in underground facilities, some of which require the usage of mining helmets for lighting purposes. Professors are blissfully unaware of the existence of courses other than the one they teach, so they each assign homework tailored to an eighty-hour workweek, bringing the total workload to 320 hours per week, or about 46 hours a day.

Back when we were first-years, the dorms were called Buchanan and Whittemore. Whittemore was known as the dorm with an elevator. I lived in Buchanan, whose full name is probably Buchanan Hall for Managers. It taught me a lot about competition. There were twice as many people as there were showers in it, so an epic battle for resources took place every morning. Waking up early was hard enough, but winning a shower required more than that: my competitor, Kibum, was a very tough nut to crack. He used the sound of my alarm clock to get up first and occupy the bathroom. When I realized that, I was crushed. In order to avoid hygienic bankruptcy, I resorted to the cowardly means of evening showers, becoming a niche player and leaving Kibum with a morning monopoly.

A great thing about Tuck is its community feeling. The way it works is the following: you meet interesting people and they don’t like you and ignore you. But then, they have nowhere to go, but the same places you go, so they eventually give in and you become friends. At least, that’s my experience.

I know each one of us has a fantasy team of classmates.

I had a fantastic time touring North America with Teguh in an exercise of teamwork: one slept, and the other one drove. Marija gave me a lot of support, including cultural tips and gossip in Serbian. Conversations with Rama are such a thrill: his comments on just about any topic are informed, hilarious and, overall, a great addition to your toolkit. Takuya is another excellent team player: he does all the work assigned to the team, and then he apologizes for it.

My fall study group produced a ton of spreadsheets, write-ups and presentations and ten friendships. However, the group went through some rough times. And you can’t blame it: it had me in it. Luckily, it also had Myra, Jessica, Rafa and Josh.

Myra offered the wisest contributions to our teamwork and the most brutal sarcasm to the team members. You had to love her for both, not to mention her unbelievable culinary skills. Well, I guess I did mention them.

Jessica made sure the group didn’t join the dark side of functionality. Her discipline became our discipline. From time to time, at least.

Rafa was our conflict-resolution expert. His calm attitude contained some wisdom from the Andes. Either that, or he was much more interested in the results of Alianza Lima than the results of our study group. It occurred to me more than once in study group meetings that he had a reflection of soccer highlights on his glasses.

Josh knew how to effectively present the results of our group, using his pretty face and, like, totally, like, eloquent rhetoric. He also suggested the best messages that we would have written to professors if only we hadn’t feared retaliation.

To see the rest of my fantasy team, please visit my website and pay a subscription fee.

Our education was painful at moments, and sometimes even confusing. Maybe time will give us wisdom to integrate all that we learned. Here’s a good example: two of my favourite professors, professors French and Howell, have different positions on diversification. I will try to paraphrase these: Professor French says diversification is great, and Professor Howell says diversification is for wimps. I used to think that these were contradictory statements, but then I realized that they both mean that diversification is great for wimps, but they just put emphasis on different aspects.

Now, if you allow me, I have a few personal messages for our professors.

Professors Powell, Shumsky, and Sundaram, you’re my heroes.

Professor Bell, I’m sorry for calling your class a support group. I meant it as a compliment.

Professor Hall, I confess that I’ve never read “The Goal”. I wanted to, but I gave up when I realized it wasn’t about soccer. But if it’s any consolation, I did learn what a bottleneck is. To prove the point, I always drink beer from a pint, never from a bottle, to facilitate the flow. Rest assured that reading “The Goal” is high on my to-do list, just below visiting Arkansas.

Many of us had an unfair advantage over the others during their MBA because they enjoyed the support of someone special. I would like to ask the partners of the class of 2009 to stand up and accept their well-deserved round of applause. Your effort was heroic. Especially yours, Setareh.

We can try to make forecasts about the value of our education. This school has seen off over a hundred generations of graduates, who became successful and happy people. That’s an encouraging dataset. One could argue that we are somehow different. We are. Just like every generation. One could argue that the times have changed. And they have. But that’s what times do for a living.

While writing this speech, there were some phrases I wanted to avoid at all costs. One of them is “the best two years of my life”. If Tuck proves to be the best two years of my life, I will be disappointed about my life. In fact, because I attended Tuck, I now expect much more from life than before.

Dear classmates, our paths will cross all over the globe, and I look forward to that. Until we meet again, I wish you the best of luck in whatever you do. I know you have all the other ingredients for success.

By choosing me for this wonderful duty, you’ve given me an immense favour. I feel in such debt to you that I’m scared of even calculating my leverage. Thank you!