Taylor Swift Receives Honorary Doctorate From NYU

At age 32, Taylor Swift has Grammys galore and more honors than most veteran entertainers receive in a lifetime.

Now she has a new title: "Doctor.''

The superstar recording artist received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from New York University (NYU) Wednesday (18 May 2022), blowing kisses as the crowd roared when she walked toward the stage at a packed Yankee Stadium.

Sporting her signature red lipstick and newly awarded honorary robe, Swift joked to the thousands of graduates assembled, `I'm 90-percent sure the main reason I'm here is because I have a song called '22.'

``I never got to have a normal college experience per se," she continued. "I went to public high school until 10th grade and then finished my education doing home school work on the floor of airport terminals,'' Swift said in her commencement speech.

The singer-songwriter, producer and director said that she began her music career at 15, touring different radio stations across the country. She went on to sell more than 100 million albums and won is the first to win the Grammy for album of the year three times: in 2010 for "Fearless," 2016 for "1989" and 2021 for "Folklore."

She winked at the crowd when Jason King of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music mentioned her newly rerecorded albums, including``Fearless."

While accepting her degree, Swift noted, ``I in no way feel qualified to tell you what to do. You've worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today. I won't tell you what to do because nobody likes that. But I will, however, give you life hacks for when I was starting out my dreams as a career."

Then she offered some life lessons:``Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth."

Swift concluded her speech by telling graduates that making mistakes is inevitable but ``when hard things happen to us, we will recover, we will learn from it, we will grow more resilient because of it. As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep and breathe out. I am a doctor now so I know how breathing works.

``I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you,`` she said. ``We're doing this together, so let's just keep on dancing like we're the class of '22.''

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Subscribe to our newest channel Quicktake Explained

Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.

To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.

Have a story to tell? Fill out this survey for a chance to have it featured on Bloomberg Quicktake

Connect with us on…

Breaking News on YouTube