Taylor Swift has many Grammy Awards and now she has a new professional title.
The superstar received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from New York University on Wednesday and blew kisses as the crowd cheered as he walked onto the stage at a packed Yankee Stadium.
Showing off her signature red lipstick and newly awarded honorary robe, Swift joked to the thousands of graduates, “I’m 90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called 22.”
“I never got to have a normal college experience per se. I went to public high school through 10th grade and then finished my education by doing school work at home on the floor of the airport terminals,” Swift said in her commencement address.
The singer-songwriter, producer and director said she began her music career at the age of 15 and toured different radio stations across the country. She later sold more than 100 million albums and won album of the year at the 2021 Grammys for her album “folk,” making her the first person to win the category three times. Her previous wins came in 2010 for “Fearless” and 2016 for “1989.”
He winked at the crowd when Jason King of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music mentioned his newly re-recorded albums, including “Fearless.”
Swift shared advice with the class of 2022, but cautioned that “in no way do I feel qualified to tell you what to do. You have worked and fought and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today. I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that, but I’ll give you tips for when I was starting my dreams as a career nonetheless.”
“Never be ashamed to try. Lack of effort is a myth,” she said.
Swift concluded her speech by telling the graduates that making mistakes is inevitable, but “when hard things happen to us, we’ll bounce back, we’ll learn from it, we’ll be more resilient because of it. As long as we’re lucky enough to be breathing, we’ll inhale, take a deep breath, and exhale.”
“I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you,” she said. “We’re doing this together, so let’s keep dancing like we’re the class of 22.”
–
