What a Send Off

This is something special. J.K. Rowling makes such an inspiring speech. There is nothing you can say about it really. Just watch.


J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.


I don't think we had big commencement speeches or the like in Australia - at least we didn't when I went to Uni.  I didn't even go to my graduation ceremony, but I don't think there was anything like this big deal. Perhaps because it wasn't for as many students. I think they split the graduation up - humanities students were one night and sciences were another.  That makes me think, I am reading Carl Sagan's book The Demon-Haunted World and he said something that struck me profoundly.

"My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought that are central to the scientific method."

That is identical for me.  If I look back on my childhood, I can certainly say my parents instilled both of those in me. So why on earth didn't I study science?  Damn... what a missed opportunity. I want a do-over!  I guess we figure out the things that really matter much later in life.



2 comments:

  M

2/11/10, 11:43 PM

You are studying science now with all your reading and thinking. Plus philosophy. Never too late!

  Anonymous

2/13/10, 1:09 PM

One good thing about not having studied a particular area is that you are not too bogged down in extremely intricate details. When you specialise in a scientific discipline, you have to spend so much time regularly just to stay abreast of your own area's latest discoveries that it becomes difficult to impossible to keep up to date in other areas.... unless you are landed gentry! :)
In a way, you get to see both the wood and the trees...

 


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