By Kate Rix

Study what you love and do good work that helps others. That message came through loud and clear at Cal’s unseasonably warm May commencements.

Parents gathered in the shadiest seats outside the Faculty Club for the Philosophy Department’s graduation ceremony confirmed that when they saw how much their children loved studying philosophy, they gave up on worrying about whether their bright, promising offspring would be able to support themselves.

“I did ask them what they could do with those degrees,” admits Lia Winston, whose twin daughters received their undergraduate degrees in philosophy and African American Studies this May. “Then I saw how much they loved what they were doing and I knew everything would work out.”

Winston’s daughters were two of many students to walk this month in caps and gowns and to celebrate with family photographs and campus receptions. Overall, this year’s commencement events shared the tone of Lia Winston’s warm and optimistic sentiments, encouraging graduates to choose further study or work that they love — and to apply the ideas at the heart of a liberal arts education to helping people.

Lia Winston’s daughter Portia will begin a policy internship with the City of Berkeley’s Mayor’s office. Her other daughter, Pia, will begin graduate studies in anthropology in the fall.

At Pia Winston’s graduation — the Black Graduation commencement at the Greek Theater, where African American Studies graduates received their degrees — San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris called upon the class of 2008 to “advocate for justice and in so doing change human lives.”

Harris, who grew up in Berkeley and received her law degree from U.C. Hastings, stressed the value of applying the values of the liberal arts to real world problems. “What matters isn’t what you do for a living,” she said. “What matters is what you do with your life.”

Choose a career in public service, Harris urged. With only half of today’s African American and Latino ninth-graders projected to graduate from high school in California, she added, the most urgent work is in supporting youth and families.

“One of you will become a therapist or a public health expert, where you can meet the needs of our children,” she said. “Every child has the fundamental right to grow up safe and whole.”

After the ceremony, the Winston family gathered for photographs in the bright May sun.

“It hasn’t been easy having two girls in college,” Lia Winston said, “but they’ve both made me so proud.”