This week I took advantage of an opportunity to cheer on a good friend graduating from law school. I attended the Columbia University commencement and law school graduation. Between the two ceremonies, I listened – staying mostly attentive through the sun and heat – to several speeches from various parties, all imparting words of advice or encouragement to the graduates.

Of course there were the obligatory trips down memory lane and a slew of inside jokes, but there were also a few key points that we can all take to heart. Over the next few days I’ll write about each of the messages that stood out to me. The first message I want to share, which was coincidentally the last I heard, was one of humility and learning.

The outgoing law school graduates nominated professors for an award for excellence in teaching, and Suzanne Goldberg was selected to receive the award. After accepting this distinction, she gave an eloquent speech on her experiences throughout her own law career, and landed on a central message to her students. This final lesson, she explained, was analogous to her experience in her first high school relay race. She was nervous, inexperienced, and not terribly skilled as a runner. The race humbled her, but she worked hard and realized at the end that she had learned from the more experienced runners on her team.

Professor Goldberg, taking every last moment to impart wisdom, urged her graduating students to be humble in their new careers, whatever path they may take. “The third-leg runner in the relay—the brand-new lawyer—brings important assets, too. One of the most important of these is humility—a healthy sense that there is plenty still to learn,” she explained. In this humility she asked them to pay attention to those around them with more skill in certain areas and more experience, to ask questions of them, to take advantage of their knowledge.