It’s all aboard for commencement! 

Five student speakers will share their hearts and journeys with the thousands of fellow graduates and guests at the undergraduate commencements of University of California, Davis, at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center Friday through Sunday (June 12-14).

They are Brody Andrews of San Francisco; Araceli Chavez Rodriguez of Caruthers, California; Diyansha Magesh of Hyderabad, India; Atmaja Patil of San Jose, California; and Youssef Yassin of Irvine, California.

We’ll learn why Unitrans’ vintage buses tugged at Andrews’ heartstrings when he toured the campus as a high school student. But first, let’s meet the four other students as we take the ceremonies in chronological order.

A dream to uplift others

9 a.m. Friday — Araceli Chavez Rodriguez, Bachelor of Arts in sociology and Chicana/Chicano studies with a minor in human rights:

Chavez Rodriguez will call on her fellow graduates to use “the grit you learned from your families and the tools you found at Davis” to help others. “Our education is not a way to ‘study our way out’ of our roots but a tool to defend them,” she said.

With humility and tears, Chavez Rodriguez told how UC Davis has changed her life and is making real her dream to uplift others. 

Growing up in the Central Valley, she watched her immigrant parents return home tired and sore from laboring in the hot, dry fields. “My dad said he didn’t want us working like him,” she said. “That’s been what’s motivated me through high school and college.”

Painfully shy, she nevertheless reached out for opportunities.

For three years, she has mentored and tutored about 20 junior high students of similar backgrounds through the Bridge program of the Department of Chicana/Chicano Studies. “I see them as my siblings,” she said. ”I want to be the person to tell them to push toward the goals they set.”

For Chavez Rodriguez, the Educational Opportunity Program helped her begin to adjust to university life through its summer experience for entering students and introduced her to other opportunities.

Through the González Pre-Law Academy, she was exposed to the legal profession and served a fellowship with the university’s legal office.

Last spring, she was a policy research intern with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, D.C. 

This summer, she will intern with the UC Davis Labor and Community Center to help advance workers’ rights in the Sacramento region. After a gap year, she plans to attend law school and pursue a career as a labor and civil rights lawyer to help workers like her parents.

“For me, this is full circle,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “I want to be that person who contributes to the movement. That’s my overarching goal — to uplift those who helped me get where I am.”

Living lessons in resilience

2:30 p.m. Friday — Youssef Yassin, Bachelor of Science in sustainable environmental design:

It’s no surprise that, as a graduate in sustainable environmental design, Yassin would talk about resilience.

But what Yassin doesn’t say in his draft speech gives his words extra meaning: He wasn’t accepted into his major of choice, landscape design architecture. He worked full time. And he lost his father last month after a long illness.

“If there’s one thing UC Davis taught me, it’s this: Resilience isn’t just something we study — it’s something we live every day,” he wrote in his draft speech.

“My speech focuses on resilience and the shared experience of adapting to UC Davis, especially the feeling of not initially belonging,” he said. “Through community and perseverance, we all found our place and grew into Aggies. The message centers on carrying that resilience forward as we step into the next chapter of our lives,” he said.

Employed since he was 16, Yassin worked 30 hours a week during his two years at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. Since transferring to UC Davis in 2024, he has worked 40 hours a week as an assistant manager at a clothing store nearly 40 miles from campus in Roseville.

“There were a lot of all-nighters, but I’ve learned how to get things done efficiently with high quality,” he said. 

Ahmed Yassin encouraged his son to apply to be a UC Davis commencement speaker. Yassin kept both his application and now his selection as a student speaker as a surprise for the rest of his family. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the opportunity to tell his father about his selection before he died May 25. “I know he’ll be watching,” Yassin said.

Yassin, who especially appreciates how lecturer and landscape architect Jessica Colvin applied what she taught to the working world, is looking forward to the challenges of designing with and for the environment in the fields of city planning, urban design and planning, or policy. “For me, sustainability is the future,” he said. “That is what the trend is, and that’s what we have to do to keep on living.”

Plans change

9 a.m. Saturday — Diyansha Magesh, Bachelor of Science in psychology and theater and dance:

If things had unfolded as Magesh once planned, she would have gone to an Ivy League university or attended one of the top dance programs in the world. But by the fall of her freshman year, she realized she was where she needed to be. “UC Davis quickly became a place where I felt comfortable, supported and at home.”

And after taking a few classes in psychology, Magesh made that subject, rather than dance, her major. She should have known. As a child, she carried around a small blue notebook where she jotted down questions and things she learned about psychology, the field in which her mother works.

In her speech, Magesh will invite graduates and guests to take a step back and appreciate the things in their life that didn’t go as planned. “My goal is for people to laugh, reflect and feel comforted in knowing that none of us really have everything figured out — and that’s OK.”

After taking a summer course in organic chemistry to complete her degree, Magesh wants to gain research experience and later earn a doctorate in clinical psychology. She wants to pursue a career in which she helps people. Any more detailed plans? “Lately, I’ve decided it’s a bad idea to always plan so far ahead.”

Magesh has already interned for two summers at a mental health institute in India; done research at the UC Davis MIND Institute and volunteered with its Attention, Impulsivity and Regulation Program; served as a peer mentor at the Student Disability Center on campus; and worked as an ambassador for a mental health application.

When the pressure builds up from her especially tough science classes and all that she has on the go, part of Magesh’s self-care is dance. “I go to one of the student studios, blast music and dance like there is no one watching.”

Aggie superpower: Asking good questions

2:30 p.m. Saturday — Atmaja Patil, Bachelor of Science in biological systems engineering:

Patil said a UC Davis education gives Aggies a shared superpower: “The confidence to question the status quo. To look at a problem and ask, ‘Why does it have to be this way?’” 

There is no shortage of problems in the world, she said. “Across every industry, every community, every corner of the world we're heading into, those problems need people who know how to ask the right questions.” 

Their degree will help graduates change the world. “It is a tool, it is permission, and above all, it is a responsibility to make a real difference.” 

Questions took on an essential role for Patil when she became an entrepreneur. In her sophomore year when she couldn’t get a physics class she needed, an academic advisor suggested “Introduction to Entrepreneurship.”

“That class changed my life, because it led me to the Student Startup Center,” Patil said.

The College of Engineering center is equipped to help students prototype ideas and collaborate on technology ventures. There, Patil said, she learned that products solve problems, and problems reveal themselves when you ask good questions.

As the center’s venture development manager for the last two years, she has helped more than 50 student startup teams launch and scale their ventures. 

Patil co-founded the startup Oasis, which automates state compliance reporting for small public water utilities in California. And as one of three owners of the Davis Curry Club, Patil oversees marketing and outreach for the student-run small business, which delivers surplus food from an Indian restaurant to customers in Davis.

A product management intern at Cisco last summer, Patil will join the company as a product manager with its enterprise routing team.

Vintage buses seal the deal

9 a.m. Sunday — Brody Andrews, Bachelor of Arts in history and cinema and digital media:

As a graduation speaker, Andrews has “collected the set”: fifth grade, eighth grade, high school and now UC Davis.

“I love public speaking,” he said. “When I was a toddler, my parents used to joke that you couldn't hand a microphone to me or I would never shut up.”

Andrews will talk about how his Gen-Z classmates are rejecting the status quo and fighting injustice. “I’m confident that Aggies will lead the charge to protect our world for the generations after us,” he said.

It would be easy to think Andrews is an overly serious young man. After all, he grew up researching, debating and working to solve global issues at Model United Nations conferences and was secretary general of the Model UN conference that brought more than 600 high school students to UC Davis in May.

But he also performs stand-up comedy on and off campus, and he has been vice president of the Stand-Up Comedy Club at UC Davis for the last two years. 

“A lot of problems could be solved if there was more kindness and empathy and people connected more,” Andrews said. In his acts, he uses observations of everyday life and pop culture to create those moments of connection.

In fact, the UC Davis spirit Andrews experienced when he toured the campus as a high school student — coupled with a great history program — almost persuaded him to attend the university. “Everyone seemed happy, and there was an air of kindness and joy,” he said.

The tipping point was the vintage double-decker buses. Andrews’ great grandfather, who had recently died, drove the same model of bus when he returned to London after World War II. “I became an Aggie that day,” Andrews said.

Heading out from UC Davis, Andrews wants a career as a film producer. He has been involved in the production of multiple student films and helped organize last month’s Film Fest at UC Davis. Last summer, he interned with a San Francisco marketing company working for two Hollywood studios.

Student speaker selection

Graduating students apply to speak at commencement by submitting a draft speech and a video demonstrating their presentation style. A 14-member committee of faculty, staff and students selects the speakers after finalists deliver their speeches in person.

Other commencements

The undergraduate commencements are among the last of 13 in the spring graduation season, which began in May. The other remaining ceremonies, all on the Davis campus, are:

• Wednesday — School of Education, 4 p.m., Mondavi Center
• Thursday — Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, 10 a.m., Mondavi Center
• Thursday — Graduate Studies, for master's students, 10 a.m., University Credit Union Center
• Thursday — Graduate Studies, for Master of Fine Arts and doctoral students, 3 p.m., University Credit Union Center
• Friday — Graduate School of Management, 10 a.m., University Credit Union Center

For more information about commencement, including ticket requirements, see the news release about guest speakers.