Harvard orator Melissa Inouye ’03 compared the college experience to starting life again as a baby.

“These years at the college represent a rebirth and growing up…. The difference is that we chose it for ourselves…. We understood the risks involved in the decision and began anyway.”

Thomas Miller ’03 denounced passion in his Harvard oration, claiming that it is destructive, painful and passive.

“Do not lie idle because you don’t have passion. Don’t be afraid to search,” Miller said. “Because once you find them, passions will become as natural as breathing.”

The Ivy orators added a kick of humorous sarcasm to the program, as Courtney Bass ’03 griped in her speech, “In less that 24 hours, I will be kicked out of here faster than a freshman party is shut down by the Harvard University Police.”

Bass added that seniors should hone their real world skills before leaving Harvard, warning, “I’m sure at least half of us will make it. The rest of us can come back as GSAS [graduate] students.”

Finally, in an “octopussy” speech with James Bond puns, Holden Karnofsky ’03 noted in his Ivy oration that when students enter Harvard, they have a lot to learn.

“Seventy-five percent of us were already tenured professors at Princeton. Sixty-five percent were the smartest in the world,” he said. “Three percent knew how to work a laundry machine.”

He advised students to adopt a version of the Golden Rule as a guiding mantra.

“Do unto others as what will cause you to make money,” he said, adding “our education will never be over as long as we refuse to complete the Moral Reasoning requirement.”

By the end of the ceremony, Subrahmanian waxed reflective and told his classmates how special they were.

“Do not go out there and try to be great,” he said. “Remember this day, remember this place…and know you already are great, and its just a matter of sharing yourself with the rest of the world. It’s a world that could really use you.”

—Staff writer Hana R. Alberts can be reached at alberts@fas.harvard.edu.