‘We are better together than we are alone:’ Student speakers’ heartfelt words

Northwestern graduates enjoyed several poignant and moving speeches throughout this year’s Commencement ceremony, including words from fellow students.

Shalom Ikhena, a master’s degree recipient from the Kellogg School of Management, and Claire Throckmorton, an undergraduate in the McCormick School of Engineering, shared their reflections on graduation on Sunday, June 9, at the United Center.

Ikhena began by looking back to 2021, when she wrote her MBA application from her home in Abuja, Nigeria. She saw her long journey to Northwestern as a calling. Although she grew up with a stutter, she challenged herself this year to seek out as many public speaking opportunities as she could find.

Her challenge became a triumph. She asked audience members to think about their own impact, regardless of future plans, creating a call to action from the podium.

“I went up to talk about love and empathy — who we really are at our core,” she said.

“When you’re from a different country, you wonder, ‘Does my message translate across cultures?’ I’ve heard from people all over the world who told me it resonated with them, reminding me that, as humans, we are truly more alike than different.”

Ikhena received a 2024 Youn Impact Scholarship for her work in founding the Sawubona Foundation, which leads grassroots initiatives to combat sexual violence in her home country.

Throckmorton, a chemical engineering and earth and planetary science double major, grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. It was there that she started her Northwestern career — as COVID-19 necessitated virtual learning.

In her speech, she emphasized how social distancing put a premium on the need for connection among her classmates, recalling her experience finding community in the Northwestern University Marching Band.

“Being part of the band has fostered so much pride and love for this school and all of the wonderful people that I’ve met here,” she said. “I wanted to thank my classmates for all that they did to shape the Northwestern that I got to know.”

Throckmorton plans to spend the next year volunteering with AmeriCorps.

Here are a few thoughts the two shared with fellow members of the Class of 2024.

Shalom Ikhena

• “I have spent the last two years doing what I believe is the work of my lifetime, and the work of all our lifetimes, and that is to learn about ourselves just enough that we can truly serve this world better. To find out how our individual pieces fit the puzzle of something that needs to be healed in the world.”

• “As we shift into this next chapter, where the question goes from an external ‘Who do you want to be when you grow up?’ to the internal, reoccurring ‘Who am I?’ I hope we keep the most important things we have learned in this experience in our locket — things like empathy, integrity, how to draw the perfect demand curve and most importantly, love, even in the face of isolation in the worldwide pandemic.”

• “On a course trip to Costa Rica last year, I learned that if you look at a waterfall for long enough, when you look away, inanimate objects begin to look like they’re moving. I can only hope that we have sat in this moment for long enough that something in the rest of our lives has shifted forever.”

Claire Throckmorton

• “Every single person in this room has shaped everyone else’s Northwestern experience in some way. Our shared experiences have made us who we are and have defined the Northwestern that we know today.”

• “We started out more physically separate than any other first-year class that Northwestern has ever seen, but that distance didn’t keep us apart. In fact, if anything, it showed that we’re better off when we’re all connecting.”

• “Northwestern taught us sociological theory, exchange rate overshooting, truth-functional logic, phonology and isotope geochemistry, among other niche concepts. But the most important thing we learned was that we are better together than we are alone.”