UC Irvine Engineering Class of 2025 Commences
June 26, 2025 - “How lucky are you to be graduating with an education in solving complex problems, just when the world’s problems have never been more complex,” said Alex Parker, EV technology entrepreneur, to UC Irvine’s Anteater engineering Class of 2025. Parker was the featured speaker at the Samueli School of Engineering Commencement Ceremony on June 14.
It was a full house at the Bren Events Center as Dean Magnus Egerstedt welcomed everyone to the celebratory occasion, full of pomp and circumstance. The school expects to award 177 doctorates, 284 master’s degrees and 799 bachelor’s degrees this academic year.
Mechanical engineering major Samantha Hixon kicked things off by singing the national anthem, and chemical engineering major Gordon Ko delivered the student speech. Ko encouraged his classmates to never allow setbacks to deter them from trying again. “If you refuse to give up, you cannot lose,” he said. “Let’s not wear ourselves down about what could go wrong but instead be inspired by everything that could go right. And like Dory (in Finding Nemo), just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”
Parker, an EV technology entrepreneur, told the graduating class that as they go out into the world to remember and consider these three words: fear, curiosity and luck. “The way to overcome the fear that you may be feeling today is to take action. Stop overthinking the road ahead; get out there and engineer solutions that are bold and compassionate.”
She also said that curiosity was the backbone of innovation and the very heart of humility. “Curiosity is your greatest superpower in work and in life, and I encourage you to be increasingly curious about both things and people.” She reminded students that the sacrifices they made were worth it. “You made your own luck with a thousand micro decisions that brought you to this one lucky macro moment. You are brilliantly equipped to engineer solutions with vision and compassion. You are extraordinary and I’m so proud of all of you.”
Before closing the ceremony, Egerstedt encouraged everyone to applaud the special guests in attendance, all those who supported and, in many cases, made great sacrifices so that students could further their education. He then congratulated students on behalf of the whole Samueli School of Engineering and led everyone in the arena in a powerful Anteater Zot, Zot, Zot!
Graduates marched out of the center in procession and began their celebrations with families and friends, relieved that they completed their degree and excited for the next chapter. Some like Ko will go onto graduate school, and others have jobs and internships lined up like National Society of Black Engineers President Quincy Barnes who will intern at SpaceX and UCI Rocket Project Manager Kyle Deck who will be in his dream job as a product development engineer at Hybron Technologies.
Others like Hixon, the national anthem singer, will be job searching. She graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and two minors, one in biomedical engineering and one in theater and has had a few interviews already. “I’m hoping to find something in aerospace or biomedical engineering,” she said. The singer/actor/engineer said the creative side of her really helped with engineering. “In engineering, you have to use your imagination, that’s what we do.”
Dean Egerstedt’s message to the Class of 2025 echoed that sentiment: “As engineers, we not only study the world as it is, we envision the world as it could be. We don’t stop at just imagining what the world could look like, we use design tools, math, physics and then we try to make it so. I believe our superpower is that we can dream big but we also have the tools to make stuff happen and that is powerful.”
– Lori Brandt
