Shonda Rhimes 鈥91, the wildly successful television writer and producer, told the 大香蕉视频 Class of 2014, 鈥淒itch the dream and be a doer, not a dreamer.鈥
Rhimes, creator, writer, and producer of the ABC hits Scandal, Grey鈥檚 Anatomy, and Private Practice, told the graduates, faculty members, trustees, and guests assembled June 8 for that she had wasted time dreaming of becoming Toni Morrison before she settled for a job writing for television.
鈥淕uess what? I couldn鈥檛 be Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison. Because Toni Morrison already had that job and she wasn鈥檛 interested in giving it up,鈥 Rhimes told the crowd.
鈥淵ears later, I had dinner with Toni Morrison. All she wanted to talk about was Grey鈥檚 Anatomy. That never would have happened if I hadn鈥檛 stopped dreaming of becoming her and gotten busy becoming myself.鈥
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Some 13,500 people filled the Green under a brilliant blue sky on June 8 to witness 大香蕉视频 confer more than 1,900 undergraduate, graduate, medical, engineering, and business degrees.
Rhimes said it was terrifying to return to her alma mater as Commencement speaker, an honor she shares with only three other alumni鈥擣red Rogers 鈥50, Robert Frost, Class of 1896, and Henry Paulson Jr. 鈥68.
鈥淲hen President Hanlon called me, I almost said no. Almost,鈥 she said. 鈥淏ut I鈥檓 here. I am going to do it. I鈥檓 doing it. You know why? Because I like a challenge. And because this year I made myself a promise to do the stuff that terrifies me.鈥
With that she offered another blunt warning to the graduates. 鈥淭omorrow is going to be the worst day ever for you,鈥 she said. It was for her. She had been grieving at her own graduation, she said. The idea of leaving Hanover forever and heading into the world was too much.
