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Engineering |
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Henry
Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science |
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Google’s Vinton G. Cerf Advises UCLA Engineering Grads:
“Don’t Be Afraid of Failure”
Alumnus Vinton G. Cerf MS '70, PhD '72 |
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Nearly 6,500 guests and students from the UCLA
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied
Science gathered at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday, June 17, to hear Internet
pioneer and Google vice president Vinton G. Cerf MS ’70, PhD ’72 deliver
the 2006 commencement address.
Widely known as a “father of the
Internet,” Cerf encouraged graduates to
“find an engineering career that you
truly love. Such work can nourish and
sustain in ways that must be experienced
to appreciate.”
Cerf also shared some very personal
advice, telling students not to be afraid to
take on a challenge that might result
in failure. “The challenging, risky road
may also be the most productive and
satisfying. If you have a choice, take the
riskier one, you will not regret it for the
experience if nothing else,” Cerf advised.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger!”
As a humorous aside, Cerf, citing the
leaning tower of Pisa in Italy and a
Swedish warship called the VASA, which
capsized after its impressive gunports
filled with water, advised the future
engineers of “another important, if
perhaps dubious life lesson. If you are
going to screw up in engineering, try to
do it big time.The results will become a
tourist attraction in the centuries to
come and therefore contribute to the
general economic welfare of the local
population, if not to the reputation of
the engineering profession.”
The approximately 1,000 combined
undergraduate and graduate students
celebrating graduation received some
final advice for the future from one of
the nation’s most influential technology
pioneers. On a serious note, Cerf
reminded graduates that “with the
occupation of engineer comes a moral
responsibility, if not also a legal one, to
do the best you can at the job and to be
very cognizant of the side-effects of your
work. People’s lives may depend on it.”
Throughout his career, Cerf has
contributed significantly to the creation
and the continued growth of the
Internet. Cerf, together with Robert
Kahn, co-designed the basic architecture
of the Internet and the very first TCP/IP
protocols. Both were awarded the U.S.
National Medal of Technology in 1997,
and, in 2005, the highest civilian honor
bestowed in the United States for their
pioneering work: the Presidential Medal
of Freedom.
Early in his career, Cerf worked with
UCLA computer science professor
Leonard Kleinrock on the development
of ARPANET, the beginning of what is
today’s Internet.
Now a vice president at Google, Cerf continues to identify new enabling
technologies and applications on the Internet and other platforms
for the company, and along with his VP post, holds the title of
“chief Internet evangelist” for the company.
- Melissa Abraham
Bob Knight Photography
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COPYRIGHT
2004 UCLA |
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