Valedictorian Address by Sambit Mishra

Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, I'd like to begin by congratulating and thanking fellow graduates. All of you deserve immense recognition for your unique achievements and contributions during the past four years, and it has really been an honor to study with you.

But those who deserve the most recognition today are the faculty and staff who made these years such a valuable experience. I will forever consider it a pleasure and a privilege to have gained knowledge and inspiration from the extraordinarily talented instructors of Polytechnic.

Anyone can get a 4.0, but few people can ever match the dedication, patience and sacrifice of the professors I've had the opportunity to meet. During the fifty-five courses I've taken at Poly, all of the fifty professors I have met have been extremely willing to go out of their way and give time beyond their requirements to ensure that every student learns.

I was painfully reminded of this only six weeks ago with the passing of Professor Chandni Shah. Dr. Shah was an ideal example of these qualities, working at Poly late at night, on weekends and holidays to raise standards and improve the quality of our math education.

It is the contributions of professors like her that make me thankful I chose to attend Poly. During my stay, I have learned not only calculus and coding practices, but also how to solve problems and think independently. These are the skills which are becoming critically important in our rapidly changing environment and globally expanding market.

It may sound paradoxical, but at Poly, I have also learned how to learn more effectively. I've learned the true value of planning my work and dividing large projects into manageable steps. I've learned that important problems are often complex and have multiple remedies, and that the simple approaches are rarely the best ones. I've learned that there are no substitutes for our sincere efforts, and with enough effort, anyone can achieve anything.

The result of these valuable lessons is that I have significantly improved over the student I was when I first entered Poly, and I trust that all of you have taken advantage of at least a fraction of what our school has offered to change your lives.

Thank you for listening.