Southampton High School Alumna to Deliver 2013 Yale Commencement Speech

Julia Pucci has the opportunity to deliver a commencement speech as she graduates in May from Yale College.  With urging from family and friends, Julia entered her David Foster Wallace-inspired speech in answer to the call for Class Day commencement speeches (Yale does not utilize a traditional Valedictorian/Salutatorian system for commencement).  She was thrilled to learn it had been selected to go through to the next round of the competition: an audition in front of a panel of judges. 

Her years of adjudication and audition experiences as a viola student at Southampton, the Juilliard Pre-College Program, and as the Principal Viola of the Yale Symphony Orchestra coupled with her love of language during her audition.  The result:  Julia has been chosen to deliver the student commencement speech during Yale University’s 2013 Class Day, one of many graduation weekend events and the only one where students have the opportunity to address all of the undergraduates.

Julia is excited to be joined on stage on May 19 by Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ, who is well-known as a dynamic speaker.  “He’s really funny and I think I follow him in the order of the ceremony, so I am going to really have to work to make my speech dynamic,” she says, smiling with the thought of actually getting a chance to share the podium with Booker.  Other Class Day highlights are a student-delivered poem, a humorous take from a student, a Class Day video, and the wearing of funny hats.  “I’ve had the chance to see Class Day before as a member of the symphony orchestra and some of the hats people wear are very unusual.”  Yes, Julia will be donning a funny hat as she delivers her serious speech about awareness and consciousness that she and other Yale students have acquired during their tenure in New Haven and how to take it with them into the world.

Julia is working on finishing up her Senior Year classes and writing her thesis in Italian.  Yes, you read that correctly.  She is writing her thesis not utilizing the English language, but Italian, a language she first encountered her freshman year of college.  After graduation, the Italian major (one of only three senior Italian majors at Yale), will be heading to Brazil to tour Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro with the Yale Symphony Orchestra.  No stranger to travel thanks to a couple of study abroad experiences in Italy, Julia is thinking of traveling next to Israel to study Hebrew.  

Like many college graduates, she is leaving her options open, but would perhaps like to end up in Washington, D.C., as a member of a think-tank doing research and writing speeches.  Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled; Julia Pucci’s words might just be on the lips of a major political figure one day soon.  Regardless of where she lands, she is a source of pride for the Southampton School District and her family.