MONTREAL - Montreal-born William Shatner's advice to newly-graduated McGill students: never fear making mistakes.

"Don't be afraid of taking chances, of striking out on paths that are untrod, don't be afraid of failing, don't be afraid of making an ass of yourself," Shatner, 80, said to laughter at McGill's spring convocation Thursday. "I do it all the time, and look what I got."

The actor, most famous for playing James T. Kirk in the Star Trek series, then held up the honorary doctorate he received as part of the convocation ceremonies, 49 years after he graduated from McGill with a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

He admitted, however, that most of his learning at McGill came away from the classroom.

"But my talents lay in trying to be funny and entertaining people and although I didn't study that per se - that's latin by the way - I did get my education complete, whole and useful at McGill," Shatner said. "I got it my own way."

Instead of offering answers from deep space, Shatner employed hometown geographical references to get his point across.

He noted that the grads will likely find that life is less like posh and efficient Sherbrooke Street and more like the winding, dusty roads of Cote des Neiges.

And in fact, Shatner told reporters afterwards that the real life Captain Kirk would never even consider going up in space.

"Tempted to go up?" he said when a reporter asked if he'd like to be a space tourist. "No, no, I'm scared."

In 1992 students voted by 51 percent to name the Student Union building after Shatner and the structure still bears his name.

In his seven-minute speech, delivered in his trademark pause-act cadence, Shatner confessed to being at times a less-than-devoted student and displayed some off-colour humour which had the grads screaming with delight and offering thunderous applause.

Shatner, who grew up in NDG, also said he has no plans to retire, but his new piece of paper from McGill will mean people will be calling him Kirk no longer.

"Well first of all," he said of his honorary doctorate, "I'm going to insist that everyone call me doctor."