Proud families and friends watched as their graduates received diplomas and degrees during 16 separate ceremonies for the professional schools and the College of Letters & Science, which conferred more than 6,000 degrees. Most occurred June 15-17.

Notables from the worlds of business, academia, politics, art and science offered words of guidance and encouragement as the graduates were preparing to embark upon new adventures. UCLA Medals were awarded to two women, Iris Cantor, philanthropist and supporter of the arts and access to health care, and Andrea Rich, CEO of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and former executive vice chancellor at UCLA.

Among the thousands who donned mortarboards were four exceptional graduates for whom these past college years will forever be remembered as a life-changing experience. UCLA Today staff writer Judy Lin-Eftekhar asked these newly minted alumni to share a little about what they learned at UCLA, what they will miss most and where they are headed.

The Graduates

Abigail Valencia

An applied math major, Abigail Valencia received the Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Community Work for setting up a computer-training lab at a shelter for homeless women in downtown Los Angeles.

"Every day of my four years at UCLA has been a learning experience for me," Valencia said, admitting that, in the beginning, she struggled with "believing in myself."

"When you are taking really hard classes and you start to realize that everyone in your classes is just as smart or smarter than you, it's easy to lose confidence," she said.

"It became easier when I finally realized that I was here for the education and the experience of college, not to be the best or the smartest. I learned to enjoy learning again."

Valencia is headed for graduate school in applied mathematics at UC Berkeley this fall.

Jonathan Gill

President of the 2001 medical school class, Jonathan Gill will begin a residency in a combined internal medicine and pediatrics program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York this fall.

Of his experience at UCLA, Gill said, "I will always remember the wonderful administrative support, the amazing faculty and the inspiring individuals with whom I had the privilege to learn."

Gill advises incoming freshmen to "keep yourself balanced between your school work and your other interests, because those outside interests may be all that will maintain your sanity."

The most valuable lesson he learned?

"Change is achieved when you do your homework and are persistent."

Anne Jollay

Anne Jollay was president of the 2001 law school class, editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Docket, and a member of the State Moot Court Team. This fall, she will be practicing employment law for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles.

"What I will remember most about UCLA," she said, is "the unbelievable talent of my classmates."

An important lesson learned, she said, was, "If you have occasional flighty or careless tendencies and plan on a career in law, you'd better figure out how to eradicate that part of your personality pretty quickly."

Jollay advised incoming students: "Take the challenge of law school very seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously."

What will she miss most? "Lu Valle food," she said, which she also cited as the greatest challenge to her survival.

Ryan Bailey

Co-captain of the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team, history major Ryan Bailey may play basketball on the international circuit next year or take a position as a sports agent.
"I've met so many great people in the team's travels and on campus," he said. "The friendships I've made will last a lifetime."

Of all the trials this student athlete had to endure physically and mentally, the greatest was the challenge of taking final exams this past winter at the same time the team was playing in the NCAA championships. "I was ecstatic at getting through that," he recalled.

Bailey advised incoming Bruins: "Take advantage of every opportunity here, and you can have the time of your life."

The Guests

Michael J. Fox

Invited by medical school graduates to speak at the Hippocratic Oath Ceremony June 1, actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, has become a vocal advocate for research, taking his message to Congress, to the American Academy of Neurology and now, in his first commencement address ever, to UCLA. "That's why I'm here. I'm a patient," he told graduates, with "a progressive and catastrophic illness." Fox said he hoped to help the new doctors relate better to their patients, to bridge that gulf between "I'm sick, you're not." When he initially heard the term Parkinson's disease from his neurologist, he recalled, those two words "bludgeoned me. I don't think I felt anything. ... The air was sucked from my lungs." The star of "Spin City" eventually quit his popular TV series to devote his energies to the Parkinson's foundation he formed.

Dolores Huerta

Co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, Dolores Huerta, making one of her first public appearances since being hospitalized last October, addressed graduates of the School of Public Policy and Social Research. After emphasizing the importance of getting involved in public policy and adding how intrigued she was at the school's joining of social welfare and urban planning, Huerta offered students a list of causes waiting for them, from prisons to pesticides. "We cannot become a true democracy unless we all participate, unless we are all activists," the labor advocate said. Remember, she advised, that it's "working people who create the wealth in our society, as professional people, our job is to help them." To underscore her point, she asked graduates, "Would you rather be stranded on an island with an attorney or a farmworker?"

Julie A. Su

Julie A. Su, the Los Angeles attorney who helped free 71 Thai garment workers after they were jailed by the INS, told School of Law graduates how hopeless the situation seemed legally for the workers. The workers were imprisoned by the INS after they were found in El Monte, being held behind barbed wire and under armed guard to keep them from leaving their jobs. "There was no established procedure for what we were doing, in fact, every authorized channel led only to dead ends," Su recalled. "Even experienced immigrant advocates said, 'This is just the way the INS works. You can't fight it.' But we did, by refusing to accept 'no' for an answer, by banging on doors that were slammed in our faces and redialing the phone when INS agents hung up on us. ... Nothing that I learned in my formal legal education prepared me for this kind of confrontation. Everything I knew about immigration law suggested the INS was acting within legal bounds. But even a third-grade child could tell it was neither fair nor humane to imprison these women and men again."

David Nagel

David Nagel is president of AT&T Labs and former vice president at Apple Computer, where he led the research and development of Macintosh hardware. An alumnus with three UCLA degrees, Nagel talked to life sciences graduates about the speed and scale of technological advances, from global communications to technologies that alter nature. "There's nothing inherently wrong in altering nature," he said. "That's precisely the point of technology. What is both novel and unprecedented are the scale of the alteration and, possibly, the irreversibility." He pointed to global warming as a potentially irreversible side-effect of technology. "Only our president seems not to understand ... that it might be prudent to begin thinking about the consequences of that warming and its potentially profound effects on our planet."