Taylor Swift’s 2022 graduation speech remains popular today. Here’s what she said
In May 2022, Taylor Swift stood in front of thousands of people at Yankee Stadium to share some thoughts with New York University’s Class of 2022.
It was the first time she’d worn a cap and gown, and of course, fashion fan that she is, she wore a little black dress and leopard-print heels with the regalia.
“Hi, I’m Taylor,” she said when she took the mic. “Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable.”
She joked at the beginning of her 20-minute speech that she was “90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22.’”
Perhaps.
But NYU chose their speaker well. Ten months later Swift went on to launch the highest-grossing music tour in history, the Eras Tour.
And to this day, her fans still watch that speech, talk about it, share clips from it and quote it in memes and GIFs on social media, especially during May — graduation month.
Like archaeologists, her fans are still dissecting it for Easter eggs.
It got new life last year after one of her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s teammates on the Chiefs delivered a controversial commencement address that went viral. People compared their two very different speeches.
“I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section,” Swift said at NYU.
“Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.”
So as the class of 2025 graduates from college — University of Missouri-Kansas City on Saturday, University of Kansas on Sunday — here are highlights of what Dr. Taylor Allison Swift had to say. (Billboard published the full transcript in 2022.)
Life hack No. 1: Catch and release
“So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it ... so I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that. I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.
“The first of which is … life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release.
“What I mean by that is: knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started.
“Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.”
Life Hack No. 2: Embrace the cringe
“Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’
“I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.”
Be enthusiastic
“And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things.
“It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do.
“And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying.
“Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.”
Messing up is human
“I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism.
“... This may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat.
“And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things. I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.”
Stand up for yourself
“Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take.
“There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run.
“Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.”
Breathe, breathe, breathe
“I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I.
“And when I do, you will most likely read about it on the internet.
“Anyway … hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out.
“And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works. I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together.”
This story was originally published May 18, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
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