As prepared for delivery.
I’m Zane, and I’m a Master’s Candidate in the Translational Medicine program joint between UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco. As an undergrad here and even now as a grad student, I’ve been really involved in Tau Beta Pi, and I’m here to answer the question, “why am I still here?”
Just three years ago, I was one of you, attending Candidate Meeting, just one floor up from here in the Woz. I joined TBP at the time because, as I suspect for the same reason many of you are here, I wanted it on my resume, and because I decided that the CM food was good and I wanted more.
But ultimately, it wasn’t the prestige or the food that kept me in TBP. I stayed in TBP because, in part, it no longer stood for “Tau Beta Pi” to me; it stood for “the best people,” and I’ll tell you three reasons why.
The first reason I call TBP “the best people” is that it’s where I found my mentors, and this is an especially surprising statement for me because my interests are very unique – I was a bioengineer who also liked public policy. But you see – Tau Beta Pi is made up of top students from all disciplines engineering and has over 100 years’ worth of alumni who were once those students. So, it’s pretty likely that you can find someone who’s done what you want to do, and could get you where you want to be, even if you’re a special snowflake like me.
The second reason TBP is “the best people” is that in addition to being mentors, they can also be your references for your next job. I’m learning this after sixteen long years in school and finally starting to look for jobs in the real world. In the job market of today, referrals from an employee might make the difference between getting overlooked or landing an interview. As it turns out, TBP alums can be found in every company you’ll probably consider applying to, and they’re more than happy to help you out.
The third reason TBP means “the best people” is that in this club, I found lifelong friends. During Veteran’s Day last year, two weeks before my senior project and first set of grad apps were due, I came down with pneumonia. Since I’m a serial procrastinator, I obviously hadn’t worked on my apps, and I tried to convince myself that despite my 104 degree fever, I was fine, and should work on my personal statements. It was a friend that I was only able to meet through TBP who took care of me, offered to bring me soup, and made me stop working and go to the hospital and get diagnosed, treated, and ultimately cured. She’s the reason I’m not only standing before you here tonight as a graduate student in one of the most prestigious translational medicine programs in the world, but also the reason I can stand before you at all.
TBP means “the best people” to me, and clearly, I found value in Tau Beta Pi.
Now, if you’re here, then you’ve been recognized as one of the best engineers in one of the finest universities in the world. All of you will succeed, regardless of whether you have the line “Tau Beta Pi” on your resume, but I encourage you to come and explore what TBP has to offer you.
This is where I found my mentors.
This is where I found my references.
This is where I found my closest friends.
I’ll be around after, hopefully somewhere in the front of the food line outside, if you have any questions about what I just said. You’ll also find me at as many free food events this semester as I could make, and I hope that I’ll meet each and every one of you there.
Thank you.