Valedictorian at City College of New York, Antoni Mourdoukoutas, left his mark of inspiration on First Lady, Michelle Obama as she was set to give her last First Lady Commencement address at the graduation ceremony.
During his speech, Mourdoukoutas, a Greek-Italian-American, focused on a theme of diversity, siting examples from his own home town of Lindenhurst Long Island and his university experience at City College. In his speech the young graduate quoted President Barak Obama saying that “we are not Black states, we are not White states, Latino or Asian states but the United States.”
Mourdoukoutas graduated from Macaulay Honors College at the City College of New York with a BE in biomedical engineering with a 3.90 GPA and has been accepted to doctoral programs in bioengineering at MIT-Harvard and UC Berkeley-UC San Francisco. He chose UC Berkeley where he will pursue his interest in researching neural stimulation to treat illnesses.
When First Lady Michelle Obama took to the podium, she was so taken by Mourdoukoutas witty and inspirational speech that after a warm embrace, she quoted what he had said.
“I think your valedictorian put it best, and this is a quote, he said, ‘The sole irreplaceable component of my CCNY experience came from learning alongside people with life experiences strikingly different from my own.’ He said, ‘I have learned that diversity in human experience gives rise to diversity in thought, which creates distinct ideas and methods of problem solving.’ That was an okay quote. Okay, you’re bright. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
USA
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