Emir Kamenica, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, delivered a commencement address at Shepherd University that was both intellectually playful and deeply philosophical. He began by reminding graduates of the literal physical reality they were experiencing: sitting on a giant rock hurling through space, tied to it by an invisible force, being bombarded by tiny bursts of energy from atomic collisions 100 million miles away. After dismissing the common reasons for college — money (a 22% earnings premium, 'nothing to sneeze at, but not life-changing'), social expectation, family tradition, even finding a spouse — Kamenica argued for a reason that was simultaneously more modest and more profound: the capacity for wonder. Education gives you 'special glasses' that transform the mundane into the miraculous. The speech's power came from Kamenica's own backstory, which he referenced obliquely: a refugee from Bosnia who arrived at Harvard and had to clean other students' toilets to earn money for textbooks. For him, the wonder of education was not abstract but deeply personal — it had literally transformed his world.