Oprah Winfrey received an honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Howard University in 2007 and delivered a deeply personal commencement address to the graduates. Visibly emotional throughout the ceremony, she told the class that the most important thing she could share was that failure is an illusion. She drew from her own experience of being told she was 'too big, too black, too emotional' for television news in Baltimore, only to be moved to a talk show to run out her contract — which became the launchpad for her entire career. Winfrey urged the graduates not to be afraid of paths that seem like dead ends, because those redirections are often divine guidance toward something greater. 'God could dream a bigger dream than you can dream for yourself,' she told them, encouraging them to live in the space of that larger dream.