Jacques Pépin began cooking as a child, helping out at his parents’ restaurant in Bourg-en-Bresse, near Lyon, France. He had a gift, and he braised and sautéed his way to the position of personal chef to three French presidents, among them Charles de Gaulle. But Pépin (Hon.’11) dreamed of success in America, where he arrived to learn English in 1959 and never left. And he dreamed of a high school and college diploma, and he earned both while working full-time as a chef.

Since 1983 Pépin has been a part-time faculty member at BU’s Metropolitan College, in the master’s in gastronomy and certificate in the culinary arts programs, which he cofounded with Julia Child (Hon.’76). With his trademark playful wit and a lifetime of experience in a challenging and increasingly competitive career, Pépin addressed MET graduates at the college’s 2015 Convocation at Agganis Arena Saturday evening.

“Even though I’ve been at BU for 30 years, you can hear from my accent that I am not from Boston,” Pépin told the graduates with his unmistakable Gallic lilt. “I am actually from Connecticut.” Although as a young man he had a flourishing career in France, Pépin said he thought of America as “the El Dorado, the Golden Fleece.” He arrived here on a boat and half a century later, said the 79-year-old, “I am still here.” He earned a high school equivalency diploma while cooking for the New York restaurant Le Pavillon, and still as a full-time chef, went on to earn a BA and an MA at Columbia University. “And you know what that’s like,” he said, referring to MET students’ challenge of completing course work while holding down jobs, and in many cases, raising families. “Going to college changed everything, and it was the greatest time of my life.”

Specializing in college study for working people, with evening and online classes, MET is celebrating its 50th anniversary. People with MET degrees are young, middle-aged, and diverse in every way. Welcomed by Tanya Zlateva, MET dean ad interim, Pépin looked out over a sea of graduates from a broad range of disciplines, represented by handheld placards. Of the 1,600 graduates, which included those who completed their programs since summer 2014, 589 graduate students and 71 undergraduates were in attendance. Their degrees and certificates are all over the map: arts administration, project management, health informatics, actuarial science, finance, criminal justice, tourism management, and many more. Pépin’s speech was spiced both with broad advice to those embarking on new lives and careers and with the vagaries of his own occupation.

The now-world-famous chef, who along with his great friend Child became synonymous with French cooking through many PBS series and popular cookbooks, likes to remind young people that there was a time when to become a chef “was considered lowly and uninspired, and any good mother would have wanted her daughter or son to become an doctor, architect, or lawyer, but not a cook.” But now, alluding to chefs’ celebrity status, he added in a tone of disbelief, “we are geniuses.” He told the graduates that everything he’s done was “by choice and with love.”

Pépin, who first came to BU to teach in the School of Hospitality Administration, referred to the University as “a vibrant, exciting place to be, a place of stimulation and challenge. Be proud of your school,” he said. The time after graduation is one when “the word impossible does not exist,” so they should push for what they want. “Have the courage to try,” he said. “Fortune smiles on the audacious.” Life usually becomes difficult at some point, but our accomplishments fortify and comfort us. And success is less about money than it is about being “happy with yourself, with who you are, with what you do.” Pépin urged the graduates not to forget “the simple pleasures in life. For me, it is still sharing a meal and a bottle of wine with friends.”

With their degrees from MET, Pépin told them, they will be able to influence and reach the people around them. “I believe in the goodness of human nature,” he said, encouraging those listening to work to find that goodness even when it’s not apparent. “Live your life to the fullest. That is what a liberal education does for you.”

He concluded with a bit of his trademark mischief, sharing his hope that the graduates will occasionally be able to laugh at themselves. “An education is important,” he said. “To quote G. K. Chesterton, the 19th-century English writer, ‘Without an education, we are in the horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.’”