Gamble, said NBC's Richard Engel. Travel, explore and take chances, Engel told graduating students at Stanford's 124th Commencement. Drawing on what he has learned under pressure as the network's chief foreign correspondent, Engel implored the Class of 2015 to renounce desk jobs and their comfort zone. "Now is the time," he urged, "to do that one thing you really want."
Engel, who graduated from Stanford in 1996 with a bachelor's degree in international relations, described how he started his career by moving to Cairo without a job, immediately attracting the attention of the secret police and living in an apartment where the roaches made eye contact with him. His later experiences as a war correspondent (including being kidnapped in Syria and freed by a gun battle) enabled him to "ride the train of history."
He told the grads to figure out where the train "is heading next and where you can get on it." Do that, he said, and "I guarantee you will be successful."
