Northeastern Oakland, Silicon Valley graduates told their degree is ‘not just a credential, it’s a connection’
More than 300 undergraduates and graduate students receive degrees on Holmgren Meadow.
OAKLAND, Calif. — In the middle of Northeastern University’s commencement ceremony for the Oakland and Silicon Valley graduating class of 2026, a small white dog leaped from a spectator’s lap and chased an unsuspecting pair of ducks across the grass on Holmgren Meadow.
Like the graduates seated around him, he was having his moment.
The two-hour ceremony, held at the Oakland campus on Saturday and livestreamed on the university’s website, celebrated 304 graduates – 84 from Oakland, 206 from Silicon Valley, and 14 others – who gathered with their friends, families and faculty to receive their degrees, a culmination of years of work, all wrapped up in this moment.
“It is my honor to welcome all of you to this extraordinary day,” said Oakland Dean Dan Sachs from the stage. “It’s one ceremony, two campuses, one Northeastern family.”
Dean Sachs was joined by Silicon Valley Dean Caroline Simard, whose campus opened in San Jose in 2015. Simard began the ceremony of speeches and degree presentations by acknowledging the Golden Graduates in attendance, from the Northeastern class of 1975 and Mills classes of 1972 and 1973.
It was a historical day for Northeastern Oakland, with the last Mills legacy undergraduate class receiving their degrees, four years after Northeastern University merged with Mills College in 2022.
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But whatever school they started with, or campus they attended, alumni speaker Richard Yue reminded the graduates that they are now part of the Northeastern network, with 365,000 alumni worldwide.
“Your degree is not just a credential, it’s a connection,” said Yue, who graduated from the Silicon Valley campus last year and works as a software engineer at Meta. “Welcome to the Northeastern family.”
Yue assured the graduates that entering a challenging workplace isn’t a cause for doubt, but an opportunity for continued learning.
When he started at Meta, he said, it seemed like everyone had an encyclopedic knowledge that he wasn’t sure he could match. His mantra became: “I know a lot, but there’s a lot I don’t know.”
Yue has already made great strides in his field: building a computational model that rivals Google Translate in decoding complex acronyms.
But before he could accomplish such professional feats, Yue had to step into the world as a new graduate and commit to a mindset of continued learning.
“A year ago, I was in your shoes,” he said. “It was there that I realized that my learning did not stop.”
Keynote speaker Yanbing Li, chief data product officer at Datadog, a cloud-based monitoring and analytics company headquartered in New York, told the graduates that they are entering a new work landscape, one steeped in artificial intelligence. In fact, she called the class of 2026 “the first AI-native graduating class.”
“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room,” said Li, who received her master’s degree from Cornell University and Ph.D. from Princeton and has worked in technology for nearly 30 years. “Many of you may be wondering what happens to me in a world where a machine can do what I do.”
Li said that while her work has advanced AI, including helping to build self-driving trucks and perfect digital AI products, she never defined herself by this work. In fact, it was her ability to pivot her skills in different roles, not fixating her professional identity to one concept, that has buoyed her longevity in an ever-shifting technological landscape.
Ultimately, she said, she wasn’t there to talk about AI, but the importance of human resilience.
“This has been an extra special weekend of commencement for me,” she said, sharing that she attended her own daughter’s college graduation the day before. But her daughter’s twin, who would have also been receiving a degree, passed away a year prior to graduating.
“Why am I telling you something so heavy on the day of your celebration?” she asked. “Because the most important things in life generate no alerts.”
Li said that the past year has been difficult for her family. But her surviving daughter completed her degree, she returned to work and her husband continued his pursuits.
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“It’s not about the absence of pain but the capacity to keep going,” she said.
Li’s speech touched Elizabeth Sheets Orcutt, who graduated with a master’s degree in public administration. A commuter student from Walnut Creek, Orcutt held down a job and studied for her degree on the Oakland campus during a particularly challenging time in her life.
“The commencement address from Yanbing Li deeply resonated with me because my older brother died during the fall 2025 semester,” Orcutt said. “And I’ve carried the grief of that life-changing loss while completing my degree.”
Her husband, Mark Orcutt, was in attendance to support his wife’s achievements.
“It was a year she took on more than anyone should,” he said.
“Having my family with me on the beautiful Oakland campus is something I’ll never forget,” Orcutt said. “And I’m incredibly grateful for their support.”
Fellow graduate Annabel Pena, who received a master’s degree in public policy, agreed that reaching this milestone in front of friends, family and faculty was particularly meaningful.
When Pena exited the stage, her family erupted in hoots, hollers and hugs.
“It’s exciting celebrating with my family,” Pena said.
But perhaps the most exciting part of the day came when Sachs encouraged the graduates to turn their tassels to the left, signifying that they had officially graduated, and “let the flutterfetti fly.”
The release of multi-colored, biodegradable confetti has become a tradition that Northeastern has adopted from Mills, dating back over a decade.
In unison, everyone flicked their wands into the air and a cloud of colors shot toward the sky and fluttered slowly to the ground, a colorful reminder on campus – for a day or two, until the moisture dissolves them into the grass – of a moment that will last a lifetime.
