Industry Leader Sean Swartz speaks on vulnerability in engineering

Greeting 

Good morning graduates, families, friends and faculty. Before anything else, to the families here today… thank you. You’ve supported these graduates in more ways than any of us will ever fully see. You became the first engineers your new engineers have known.

Graduates, as a fellow engineer and proud Gopher, I welcome you into a profession that allows you to literally shape the physical world around us. As engineers we don’t just solve equations and design challenges; we also solve human problems. It is a heavy responsibility, and a beautiful calling.

Opening

Let me share something with all of you that is important about me: I am absolutely terrified of public speaking. Deathly afraid. When I was first asked to speak to all of you today, my immediate reaction was dread, followed by honor and gratitude. As an unfortunate side effect of fear, my heart sank and my mind started to picture all of the ways that I could show up poorly in front of all of you.

That same afternoon that I was asked, I called my wife and asked her what I should do. Without hesitation she told me I absolutely needed to accept the invitation. She then sarcastically added that I should keep my remarks short since I’d be speaking to a group that is either hungover or distracted by what comes next, and that I should limit my message to “congratulations, don’t do dumb things, and be nice,” then mic drop and walk off stage. She also commented that I’ve never been a good listener.

My fear of public speaking isn’t actually about standing in front of a crowd or having words come out of my mouth. It’s about the fear of not meeting your expectations.

Over the last several months, the fear-based parts of my brain have proposed some truly creative exit strategies, including briefly considering whether quitting my job might be the simplest option. I share this not to be dramatic, but to acknowledge that having fears and weaknesses are part of being human. I am practicing being vulnerable.

Every single one of us in this room has fears and weaknesses. The unfortunate thing about them is not that they exist, it’s that when we don’t acknowledge and embrace them, they will quietly drive our decisions and make us the people we may not want to be. They keep us from taking risks, from saying yes to opportunities, from telling the truth, from saying I love you, from saying I am sorry, and too often from doing what is right.

Fear, Perfection and Vulnerability

The quality at the heart of my message to you is vulnerability. You may be wondering “What does vulnerability have to do with engineering?” You’ve spent the past several years learning to be precise, logical and quantitative. Engineers, by training, are taught to eliminate vulnerability from the systems we design.

The vulnerability I am talking about today has no equation. It’s the willingness to be honest about our imperfections, to embrace them instead of hide from them, particularly when other’s lives or wellbeing are at stake. The courage to be vulnerable is what separates good engineers from great ones, good people from truly great leaders.

Parents and Family

Parents out there, I know that you understand this deeply. About twenty-two years ago, give or take, you brought these graduates into the world under all kinds of different circumstances. You designed and built an environment where they could grow, learn, fail, and be loved. From that day on, you became the first engineers your new engineers have known.

And you did this without a user’s manual, formal training, no pause button, nor on-off switch. At best, you had examples from your past, maybe a book or two, and a crash course at the hospital on how to keep them alive. 

Every one of the parents in this room carried the same fear with them through these graduates’ lives: besides their other fear of dropping you—the fear of not being the best parent that you could ever want or need. Graduates, I hope that you can let that sink in and know this as truth, and I’ll repeat that again in case you lost me after my mic drop comment: one of your parents’ biggest fears has always been not being good enough in your eyes. The people in this audience view you as their most important judge.

You see, vulnerability wasn’t optional for you parents, it was required. From day one you had to accept that overwhelming feeling of not knowing everything. When your child was sick or you didn’t know how to respond to one of their needs, you had to ask for help from doctors, parents and friends. When you over-reacted to your child’s actions, you had to admit your mistakes and learn to say you’re sorry. And then you got up the next day to do it again and again… for all of these beautiful people. 

Graduates, this same principle now applies to you. You have chosen a field that gives you enormous power to shape the world, and with that power comes responsibility. You will begin your careers as engineers, by definition engineers in training, unknowing that you only have a fraction of the knowledge that you’ll need to be a practicing engineer. Your education has proven that you can learn and think critically as an engineer should (Congratulations). It has not made you an expert, just as your parents weren’t—and no one expects you to be.

Your employers will not expect you to know everything. They will expect you to keep learning and to ask questions when you don’t understand something. They and the world around you will expect and demand that you speak up when something doesn’t feel right.

When you don’t know the answer—and that day will come quickly—I pray that you will have the courage to be vulnerable and ask for help. My experience has been that most people wait too long to ask for help even though almost everyone is willing to give help. Asking for help and asking questions is not a weakness, it is an expectation of your future employers and a professional obligation. You have already seen what that looks like… the people who raised you did not have all the answers either, and yet they asked, learned, and kept going because the stakes mattered. Now it is your turn. 

When you make mistakes—and you will—please be willing to own them quickly and completely. Learn from them, fix them, and move on wiser than before. Engineering is a profession that values humility because the consequences of unchecked ego can be severe. You have seen this too. The people who raised you got it wrong sometimes, but they corrected course, they apologized, and they showed up the next day determined to do better. That is not failure; that is growth.

Closing

Graduates, remember this as you leave here today: vulnerability isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength with the door open. The world doesn’t need perfect engineers. It needs engineers who have a thirst to learn, are humble enough to listen, and courageous enough to ask for help and speak up when it matters most. Just like the parents who raised you.

Congratulations to the graduating class of 2026. May your foundations be strong, your calculations be sound, your willingness to be vulnerable guide you toward the kind of greatness that lasts, and may Ski U Mah be etched in your minds forever. Thank you, and I cannot wait for you to go build the world better than you found it.

Oh, and don’t do dumb things and be nice.