Dr. Taylor Swift kind of has a nice ring to it, huh? On May 18, Taylor ~officially~ received a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from New York University after the school lauded her as “one of the most prolific and celebrated artists of her generation” in a press release back in March.
Luckily for us, the songstress gave us a super-cute sneak peek of her college graduation ’fit on TikTok, which includes NYU’s classic violet gown along with a traditional Tudor bonnet, simple black dress, and mirror motif heels. Oh, and her iconic red lipstick, of course!
Not only was Taylor an honoree at the graduation, which took place in Yankee Stadium, but she was also one of the speakers during the university’s commencement exercises. In her speech (which was seriously epic, to say the least), the singer said a few words to her fellow graduates:
“Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by...Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination...I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.”
NYU’s Twitter page also posted some of her speech highlights:
But it was really the ending that was quintessentially Taylor: “I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re…the class of ’22.” Obsessed!
Gretty Garcia is the associate news editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covers all things news, entertainment, and pop culture. Before joining Cosmo, Gretty was a social strategist for Mrs. Dow Jones and a features and special projects editor at Editorialist. She holds an MS from the Columbia Journalism School and studied art history at Harvard College.
