Student Commencement Speaker Discusses Her Path to Graduation

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Recent IUPUI graduate Amber Kriech has long had a passion for public speaking, a characteristic that led to her most recent endeavor: delivering a commencement address to over 4,000 of her fellow Jaguars. Though most students would likely have found the idea of being onstage in front of that many people daunting, for Kriech it felt like a fitting end to her undergraduate career. “I had some butterflies on my way up there, but once I was there facing everyone, it just felt right,” she says of the experience.

This experience was different from anything else I’ve ever done at IUPUI because it felt like for the first time I was able to give back to my university and to my fellow students, both of which have done so much for me.

Amber Kriech