Indiana University Bloomington’s graduate commencement Friday focused on resilience, uncertainty and the long road students travel to earn an advanced degree.

In her keynote address, Distinguished Professor of Sociology Bernice Pescosolido told graduates to view the ceremony as a beginning.

“Welcome to the starting line,” she said. “Not the finish line, not the summit.”

Pescosolido said her own career included rejection, doubt and setbacks, and that graduates should expect the same kind of uneven path.

“Failure is a difficult and unexpected necessity,” she said. “Failure teaches you what questions really matter.”

She also told graduates that relationships matter more than accolades, and that success depends on more than grades or job titles.

“It will depend on mattering,” she said. “Mattering is the fundamental human need to feel significant to others.”

Student speaker Jayvee Del Rosario, who is graduating with a master’s degree from the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, told classmates they should remember the lesson of the IU football team’s national championship.

“We may not have been the obvious bets,” he said. “But we showed up anyway.”

Del Rosario said students often had to work through uncertainty, long nights and setbacks during graduate school, but persistence matters more than expectations.

“It was preparation before belief,” he said. “Work before praise.”

The ceremony also included remarks from university leaders who said the graduates are entering a world that needs their knowledge, judgment and leadership.