Indian-American biotech entrepreneur and former Republican Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has had a meteoric rise leading up to his appointment alongside multi-billionaire Elon Musk as a co-leader of the US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). However, long before he became any of those things, the Ohioan showed some early signs of an ambitious leader.
As the valedictorian for St. Xavier High School class of 2003, an 18-year-old Ramaswamy took the graduation ceremony stage for nearly nine minutes. The transcript of his commencement speech video, which recently appeared on social media feeds, contains no less than 1,527 words.
Ramaswamy’s rhetorical charisma had a polarising reception on the internet. X users in India spoke highly of his eloquence, especially as a graduating high-schooler. International audiences elsewhere were hung up on the seeming vagueness of his speech.
As one Instgrammer commented, “Said nothing. Perfect politician.”
Below is the full transcript of the valedictory address:
“I've been racing my entire high school career, but now, when we're finally crossing the finish line, I wish I could have stopped just a little earlier and caught a breath of the fresh air that had surrounded me the whole time.
Teachers, staff, classmates, counsellors, and friends, I'd like to welcome you to the 2003 Saint X graduation ceremony, and most of all, to the fellow class of 2003. We are finally here.
Yeah, I… I guess we finally are here. But the last question facing us tonight is what this really means.
In one sense, I feel that at long last, after struggle and after success, tonight we have arrived. Yet, in quite another sense, I'm reminded of a quote we recently read in our English class: that it is better to travel than it is to arrive, leaving me altogether confused as to how I'm supposed to feel right now.
The word 'commencement' comes from the French word which means to begin, and yet now we use that same word—commencement—to describe a ceremony marking the end of our four-year high school experience. I know the idea is a little trite for graduation ceremonies, but then again, it's only trite because it's true.
So tonight, which is it really? The climactic ending to it all, or simply the launch pad from which we now embark? The only answer lies in looking at our experience.
As I look back at our high school experience—from the late Sunday nights spent preparing for a week’s worth of workload ahead, to the lunchroom conversations spent debating the editorials in that day’s issue of the Blueprint, to the after-school hours spent sweating it out on the football field, the soccer field, or the tennis courts, or simply standing by to cheer another one of those teams on, to the late-night hours spent by the members of TX in the theatre prepping just those last few lines for the big performance in front of the full house, and the night to follow—yes, as I look back at that high school experience, I would undoubtedly forsake our arrival tonight for just another chance to travel that path once again.
But it's been said, and correctly so, that experience is like a knife—its effect [is] only determined by whether we hold it by the blade or by the handle. And we would all do ourselves a grave injustice if we were only to look at these shining moments. For just as real as these experiences over the past four years have been, so too have been our experiences of grieving and mourning as individuals and as a community—for the loss of Steve McDevitt's mother last year, of Trevor Kramer's father this year, of Mr. Mueller's father this year, and of other loved ones along the way as well.
Our experience of standing two years ago in disbelief as we watched the televisions in the library on the morning of September 11, 2001… we've had these experiences. And the knife of experience stabbed us at these moments as much as it did sharpen us at all the others. And yet, whether it was these brutal stabs or that precise sharpening that have both taken place over the past four years, those experiences have already played crucial roles in shaping the people we have been and have become—in high school, in our senior year, tonight, and in the rest of our lives to come.
When I was trying to think of the moments that struck me most over the past four years, I was reminded of an encounter I had earlier this year when I was volunteering at Bethesda Hospital. A man approached me in the hallway from behind, clutched me on the shoulder, and when I turned around to face him, he extended his hand out to me and said, Class of 1985.
A little shocked and at a loss for words at the time, I awkwardly extended my hand out to him as well, paused for a second, and said, Class of 2003. That was it. And the two of us went our separate ways.
But as I turned around and walked away that day, and as I now turn around and look back at the time that’s passed since then, I realised that when that man said, Class of 1985, he meant a lot more than just the date on which he graduated. For him, the words Class of 1985 included all of the experiences he had had with friends, classmates, his teachers, and himself over the four years he had spent at Saint X. It was something more than a symbol stitched on his class jacket—something more than a phrase printed at the top of his graduation program.
Tonight, 18 years later, the situation is still about the same. Tonight, as we graduate, our potentially mindless response, Class of 2003, takes on a whole new meaning, one that comes to collectively include the four years preceding it, more than just this graduation we’ve all been working toward. So 18 years from now, when we look someone in the eye and say that we were Class of 2003 at Saint X, what will that mean?
What will we remember when we say we were Class of 2003?
We might remember that we were yet another class to have the greatest number of National Merit finalists in the state of Ohio. We might remember that our cross-country team won its second state championship when we were sophomores. We might remember our state run in football last year—the trip that many of us made to Canton, Ohio, and the bittersweet moment of ending up as runners-up. We might remember that we were the senior class when our swim team won its 25th state championship. Or we might remember that the best recognition our school could give for that 25th state title was an optional fifth-period lunchtime ceremony.
We might remember any and all of those things 18 years from now. But when we say Class of 2003, I doubt it’ll be any of those things that will first come to mind. I think that for each of us, it’ll be something different. But I also think that even as early as tonight, we can all pretty accurately predict what that will be, no matter how far ahead we look.
I know that one of the things I’ll remember forever will be one of my first experiences as a non-Catholic Hindu at Saint X, where, at the Mass of the Holy Spirit during our freshman year, I hopelessly and desperately looked around at all the fellow students to see what they were doing—sitting up and standing down, sitting up and standing down at all the wrong times. You know, I was half-pretending to sing along to songs I really didn’t know. And I’ll remember how that all changed as the years passed.
But if I’m to remember that experience 18 years from now, then I’ll also be sure to remember my experience in my sophomore religion class, when I was exposed for the first time not only to the ideas of a Catholic school but to the ideas of my peers and, eventually, of myself. I’ll definitely remember emerging from Saint X with a personal faith that was neither Catholic nor strictly Hindu, but was finally something that I could call my own.
As I was trying to figure out how I would end this speech tonight, I considered ending it with a mutual wish of good luck to everyone. But I’m glad I’m now stopping short of making that mistake. Because when I thought about it, I realised that wishes and luck alone are not responsible for why we’re here today. It’s neither wishing nor luck that’s gotten us to where we are.
It’s not wishing that’s letting us graduate. It’s not luck that got us accepted into colleges. And it won’t be wishing or luck that’s going to carry us on its shoulders for the rest of our lives.
We’re not here because of our good luck alone. We’re here because of our good work and God’s help. And the sole end of that work shouldn’t be achieving any great reward; rather, it should be just doing the work itself and receiving nothing more in a way—in a way to give and not to count the cost. It isn’t about reaching the destination. It’s all about making the journey to get there. And in the end, we might find ourselves at a destination far from the one we have in mind tonight.
And so, tonight, we find that this graduation—this commencement—is neither an end nor a beginning. It is simply another step on the journey along which we embarked long ago.
Indeed, it is better to travel than it is to arrive. But if we look back at the travels over the past four years, we will realise that tonight is not the destination of those travels, but is instead only another stop on that journey.
So tonight, let that journey begin. Actually, excuse me. It's already begun.”