After completing the Genetic Counseling Program, class president Arden Wheeler took the podium in front of a massive crowd at the 2024 Baylor College of Medicine spring commencement ceremony.
But she was looking at and addressing her eight classmates in the program, which is housed in Baylor’s School of Health Professions, for most of her short speech.
Wheeler invoked J.R.R. Tolkien’s famed quote, “Not all who wander are lost,” as she reminded them to make their own path regardless of future career prospects, jobs and circumstances.
Arden Wheeler
“Sometimes, the weeds are more interesting than the pavement,” Wheeler said. “I encourage you to find your own niche and be your unique samurai.”
On May 28, nearly 300 students graduated from Baylor College of Medicine’s School of Medicine, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and Genetic Counseling Program in an auditorium at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston.
Before diplomas were handed to graduates and pictures were taken, several students sat down to share their plans post-graduation and what they will miss about being a student in a Baylor program.
For Royce Ma, a graduate student from California, the feeling of making it to graduation day after eight years is surreal. This summer, he will go to Boston for the next step on his journey which he hopes will combine science, artificial intelligence and technology.
He has wanted to be a scientist since he was a child playing video games in the living room. “Being a scientist is like being the ‘good guys,’” Ma said.
Dr. William G. Kaelin, Jr., a Nobel Laureate and the Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was this year’s commencement speaker. He also is a senior physician-scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Kaelin echoed the sentiment that scientists and healthcare workers are the “good guys” by default. Growing up during the Cold War and the global Space Race in the 1960s, he said that scientists, doctors and engineers were considered heroes.
That is not the case at this current point in time, he said.
“I had toy laboratory sets with real chemicals in them back then; there was a push to expose young people to science at an early age,” Kaelin said. “Science has served this country well for decades; America should be built on science and truth – this should not be a political issue.”
Dr. Paul Klotman, president, CEO and executive dean of Baylor College of Medicine, said that a lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is misinformation. And he called on the newly-minted graduates in front of him to help dispel it.
“In this new age of misinformation, facts matter,” Klotman said. “The scientific method and medicine came together 150 years ago to save lives.”
Those who received honorary degrees from Baylor include Jesse Herrera, principal of the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions; Justin Mayer, general manager of Hess Toy Truck; and Dr. Julie Louise Gerberding, president and CEO of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and former director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Gerberding said the world is living through an “explosion of science, but an implosion of trust.” She told the graduates to help people, especially their patients, to understand the process of science.
“We need you to stand strong in facts and science,” Gerberding said. “Remain trustworthy, so we can earn back trust that we have lost.”
Baylor’s annual Military Commissioning Ceremony was held earlier in the day at the main campus. Two students were commissioned, including Laurynn Garcia and Nicole Butler. Sarah Samuel George was given the 2024 Excellence in Public Health award from the U.S. Public Health Service, as well.
By Julie Garcia
More coverage of Baylor’s 2024 commencement
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