Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States is the first African American to hold the office. Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Obama served three terms in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid against a Democratic incumbent for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he ran for United States Senate in 2004.
Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Democratic primary and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He wonelection to the U.S. Senate in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.
As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – a major piece of health care reform legislation which he signed into law in March 2010 – and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which forms part of his financial regulatory reform efforts, which he signed in July 2010. In foreign policy, Obama gradually withdrew combat troops from Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, and signed an arms control treaty with Russia. On October 9, 2009, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Here you can find his advice to students:
-Starting your careers in troubled times is a challenge, but it is also a privilege
-Troubled times are moments, that force us to try harder and dig deeper and discover gifts we never knew we had. To find the greatness that lies within each of us. So, don't ever shy away from that endeavor. Don't ever stop adding to your body of work.
- With a degree from the university, you have everything you need to get started - you have no excuses not to change the world.
- The great American story is young people following their passions and not doing it for money. A whole bunch of them didn't get honorary degrees, but they changed the course of history, and so can you.
- Follow your passions, regardless of whether they lead to fortune and fame.
- Question conventional wisdom and rethink the old dogmas.
- Change fundamentally perspective and attitude.
- That no matter how much you've done, or how successful you've been, there's always more to do, always more to learn and always more to achieve.
