The students underwent two auditions where they had to perform their speech in front of the Commencement Parts Committee—the committee charged with selecting the commencement day speakers.

Even Rakoczy’s closest friends didn’t know she had applied until she was already in the finals. Bierman calls the understatedness of her bid “typical Kate style.”

While Rakoczy says she is nervous, she is confident that she is well-prepared, having rehearsed the speech—which she will deliver from memory—extensively over the past several weeks.

“I don’t know that I have ever spoken in front of 30 people, let alone 32,000,” Rakoczy quips.

Following graduation, Rakoczy plans to work for the summer but also get the chance to make up for lost time with Bierman and other friends.

Then it is off to Cairo, Egypt, where she has a teaching internship at the American International School.

Rakoczy says she is unsure of what she wants to do after her internship, but that she is interested in politics and public policy and may go to law school.

She has not, however, entirely ruled out journalism as a career.

“I love being in a newsroom, and it’s easy to think you could do that for the rest of your life, but I am not sure that the life of a reporter is one that I am cut out for,” Rakoczy says.

—Staff writer Evan M. Vittor can be reached at evittor@fas.harvard.edu.