Class of 2016 told 'Let no one stand in the way of your ambition'

New York Times investigative journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Rukmini Callimachi had a clear message for the 433 members of Connecticut College's Class of 2016: Find something you are truly passionate about, pursue it relentlessly and don't let anyone hold you back.

Callimachi told the story of her own winding and often turbulent path to success, from being turned down for a job as a waitress after graduating from Dartmouth (because her Dartmouth degree didn't afford her any waitressing experience, she was told), to dropping out of a graduate program in linguistics to covering small-town Christmas tree lighting ceremonies and discovering—while writing about people on welfare—that she qualified for food stamps.

At the age of 40, she finally achieved her dream of working for The New York Times.

"I'd be lying to you if I didn’t tell you I came very close to giving up," she said. "If I made it, it's simply because I kept going."

But Callimachi said she was bothered by the fact that as she climbed few women colleagues climbed with her. When she was named the West Africa bureau chief for the Associated Press, she discovered she was one of only seven female bureau chiefs working for a company with more than 50 bureaus.

"Much ink has been spilled enumerating the obstacles women face as they climb the career ladder, and yes those obstacles are historic and endemic—they are there and they are real," she said, speaking directly to the 264 female members of the Class of 2016. "But I believe now more than ever that what is holding us back is not those obstacles, but our inability as women to imagine ourselves at the top.

"Let no one — not society, not your family, not a boyfriend, and certainly not yourself — stand in the way of your ambition."