My Message to the Class of 2025
Clary Doyle was the undergraduate student speaker at Northwestern University’s 2025 commencement on June 22, 2025. Her address to classmates has been edited lightly.
Today, I receive a degree in philosophy. Which, as many of my relatives have pointed out, means it may be a long time before I pay off my loans. So, I am both literally and figuratively indebted to Northwestern because I got to spend the past four years trying to answer questions like: What is the meaning of life? How should I live? And what is the right thing to do?
But I’ll let you in on a secret in my field: Philosophers are less concerned with finding the right answers and more concerned with asking the right questions. No one is quite as famous for this as Socrates. When the Oracle of Delphi supposedly prophesied that he was the wisest man in Athens, Socrates was shocked because he was sure that he knew nothing. He then went around all of Athens, meeting with those who called themselves wise, and asked them questions to find out what they knew. And what he discovered was that they, too, knew nothing. So, indeed, he was the wisest man, because at least he knew that he knew nothing.
I know it may seem ironic to focus on Socrates now, considering we are here receiving diplomas that signify that we know at least something. But I think the story of Socrates resonates profoundly with us today because there’s a lot we don’t know.
We don’t know what our lives will be like out in the real world, if it will be as easy to make friends with co-workers as it was with the people in our dorms, or if we will manage to land our dream jobs as doctors, actors, musicians, politicians and entrepreneurs. And even larger uncertainties loom on the horizon: Will our generation overcome climate change or will it overcome us? How will AI alter the fabric of society? Will institutions like Northwestern remain strong for years to come?
I won’t stand up here and pretend to know the answers. But I want to say something about uncertainty and about doubt, and suggest that it’s not quite as bad a thing as we make it out to be.
I grew up in a religious town, to a religious family. My entire life everyone around me championed faith — belief in the unknown and a steadfast trust that things would work out. They urged me to set my doubts aside, but I remember, even back then, my dissatisfaction with blind faith. I pestered our parish priest with questions about why we ought to do what God said, why women couldn’t be priests, and how we could know if God was real.
I came to Northwestern to find answers to the questions I felt like I wasn’t answering back home, and the first place I looked was in a small pub in Evanston, Ill. called the Celtic Knot. Every Thursday, Northwestern’s best and nerdiest would gather to debate questions like: What is the ideal political system? Is it wrong to not be vegan? Should Truman have dropped the bomb? Every week, I would come in confident with an answer, only to have that answer tested and critiqued, and I left each meeting, without fail, with more questions and more doubts.
What I learned at Northwestern was not what I expected, but essential nonetheless. I learned how to accept academic setbacks and rejections, to forgive others and myself, and I certainly learned to never underestimate the weather. But the most important thing I learned was to doubt.
At Northwestern, I did not find faith in my ideas. Instead, I was challenged by my peers, pushed to reconsider my views about morality and, importantly, I learned to be comfortable with doubt. And this is crucial because it is only if we consider that we may be wrong about some things that we could ever change our minds.
We are now in an unprecedented moment in history in which universities like ours are under attack. And why? Because some people believe that in universities we are being inculcated into the cult of science and liberal ideology. But, in fact, the real reason is because we are not being taught faith. We are not learning to blindly believe. We are learning to doubt and to question and to criticize. And, make no mistake, it is precisely this skill that is powerful and is being attacked.
Not dissimilarly, the Athenians sentenced Socrates to death for quote “corrupting the youth” because he taught his students to question and doubt. And, while they did succeed in killing Socrates, they could not keep his wisdom from spreading. Thousands of years later, we still read the Socratic dialogues, and we still believe that there is wisdom in not knowing, power in questioning and hope in the ability to change our minds.
So as you all go on to accomplish great things, remember this: None of us came to Northwestern because we already knew things. We came because we had questions. And the reason we are standing here with diplomas, leaving Northwestern, is not because we have clear answers, but because we have deep doubts.
And while the world we live in is frightening, my wish is that we embrace this aspect of our education and continue to ask questions. Graduation speeches usually end with a call to change the world, but the truth is, the world will change whether you do anything about it or not. So instead, I encourage you to do something much harder, something more important, and that is to change your minds.
Clary Doyle
This appeared on June 25, 2025 in the Washington Post.
If you were Clary Doyle’s parents, would YOU say the $66,000 a year tuition YOU helped pay at Northwestern University was worth it for YOUR daughter?
LIFE WITHOUT GOD IS LIKE AN UNSHARPENED PENCIL….IT HAS NO POINT!
My Commentary:
Clary Doyle’s graduation address is an eloquent, courageous celebration of doubt—not as a weakness, but as an intellectual and moral virtue. While many commencement speeches traffic in confident certainty and polished ideals, this one invites us to pause, question, and stay curious. In a world craving black-and-white answers, this message chooses the gray and finds strength there.
The power of this speech lies in its countercultural honesty. It dares to say what many fear: we don’t know. We don’t know the future of our careers, our planet, or even our deepest beliefs. But rather than despair in that uncertainty, Doyle reframes it as fertile ground for growth. After all, Socrates—whose wisdom lay in acknowledging his ignorance—was not a man without conviction, but a man unwilling to stop searching.
This message is particularly relevant in our present age, where polarization often reduces thought into slogans, and people are applauded not for listening, but for “winning.” Doyle’s words point us back to the purpose of education and democracy: not to reinforce what we already believe, but to refine what we think by exposing it to challenge and conversation.
As faith communities and institutions wrestle with the tension between tradition and progress, Doyle reminds us that even doubt has a place in the sacred. For faith that cannot withstand questions is not faith—it is fear disguised as certainty. And a society that cannot tolerate disagreement is not strong—it is fragile.
The heart of this speech lies in its closing words: “Don’t just change the world. Change your mind.” In a time when “changing your mind” is too often seen as a flaw, Doyle recovers its nobility. True growth—personal, intellectual, and spiritual—requires the courage to reconsider.
My Prayer Reflection: The Wisdom of Not Knowing
God of truth and mystery,
You do not demand that we always be certain—
Only that we always be seeking.
We thank You for the gift of minds that question,
For hearts that wrestle, and for spirits that doubt.
For it is through doubt that we grow deeper in understanding,
And through uncertainty that we learn to trust.
Give us, Lord, not just the comfort of answers,
But the courage to live with the questions.
Let us never grow so rigid that we stop listening,
Or so proud that we cannot change our minds.
Bless this graduating class, O God—
With curiosity that never fades,
With humility that strengthens conviction,
And with the kind of wisdom that says,
“I may not know, but I will keep searching.”
May their voices ring with thoughtful challenge.
May their lives reflect thoughtful faith.
And may their legacy not be perfect knowledge—
But honest exploration, generous dialogue,
And a love for truth that never grows cold. Amen.
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