On June 13, 2015, the Rady School held a commencement ceremony for 160 students at the RIMAC arena at UC San Diego. The 2015 commencement is a special celebration for the school, which graduated its first class of Master of Finance and Ph.D. students. The commencement ceremony also celebrated the graduation of the school’s Full-Time, FlexEvening and FlexWeekend MBA classes.
Over 800 family, friends and Rady School supporters joined the graduates for the ceremony. The commencement keynote speaker was Julia R. Brown, an accomplished biotech executive, philanthropic leader, trustee and chair emerita of the board of trustees of the UC San Diego Foundation, and member of the Dean’s Advisory Council at the Rady School.
In her speech, Brown challenged students to live up to their potential and to keep pushing forward, in spite of success. “Achieving a peak gives absolutely no assurance of staying there,” Brown said. “We have to keep earning it every day. We need your brainpower, your talent, your energy and your leadership. We need for you to go out and foster growth of the most important and most promising industries of tomorrow.”
Rady School Dean Robert S. Sullivan, who presided over the ceremony, noted that the class of 2015 has the potential to make a significant contribution to San Diego and across the globe for years to come.
“The class of 2015 is comprised of extraordinary talent and is poised to lead, transform and revolutionize our communities,” Sullivan said. “This class is committed to excellence and impact, which we will see expressed in their future achievements. It will be exciting to monitor the many accomplishments of our MBAs and our inaugural class of Master of Finance and Ph.D. students.”
Students and alumni also took part in the ceremony, with Jeff Benabio (MBA ’15) delivering the student commencement address and Rady Alumni Board President Jarrod Hammes (MBA ’08) delivering the alumni address.
Want to learn more about the Rady School’s MBA experience at UC San Diego? Download our eBook featuring student and alumni insights on why they chose Rady, where Rady alumni work, the top benefits for Rady students and more.
Melinda Battenberg is the Public Relations Representative at the Rady School of Management. In her free time Battenberg enjoys cooking, craft beer and spending time with her family.