No, you don’t…not all of it at any rate. Got to learn when to have fun and when to get serious.
Most commencement speeches I have heard have said that what the graduates have done is important because it lays the foundation for their life ahead. If the foundation is weak the structure falls.
The way I read it, her conclusion is the opposite of the message. If what’s ahead is so much more important that what is past, how construe the meaning as to take it less seriously?
In the 50’s, commencement addresses dealt with intangibles: love of God, country, family, mankind. We were just 9 years downstream from WWII and still winding up the ‘Police Action’ in Korea. Those sentiments and those of the 1961 Kennedy speech: ‘. . . ask what you can do for your country,’ have provided the keystones for almost every commencement speech since.
Most commencement addresses still discuss what is ahead, but times and the country have changed, and such sentiments have little appeal. For example, the first shock graduates will receive is the sum total of their loans and the incredibly complex terms of repayment. The second tremor will be the affects those obligations will have on their efforts to satisfy personal basic needs, i.e., housing, food, health, finances in general, social relationships, safety, etc, for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps a more helpful message for moderns might be: in the last four years you completed your studies while making friends and choices of your own. You have achieved your degrees. Now comes the hard part – life. Buckle up and hold tight.
A friend of mine got married on the same day he graduated from college, he once told me that the only thing he remembered from graduation was looking up at the speaker and thinking, “hurry up and finish, I have to get to my wedding.”
whiteheron over 7 years ago
No, you don’t…not all of it at any rate. Got to learn when to have fun and when to get serious.
Most commencement speeches I have heard have said that what the graduates have done is important because it lays the foundation for their life ahead. If the foundation is weak the structure falls.
sandpiper over 7 years ago
The way I read it, her conclusion is the opposite of the message. If what’s ahead is so much more important that what is past, how construe the meaning as to take it less seriously?
Al Nala over 7 years ago
Considering what’s been going on on campuses lately, very few are prepared for what comes next.
DM2860 over 7 years ago
What is ahead is always more important than what is behind because you can’t do anything to change what is behind.
sandpiper over 7 years ago
In the 50’s, commencement addresses dealt with intangibles: love of God, country, family, mankind. We were just 9 years downstream from WWII and still winding up the ‘Police Action’ in Korea. Those sentiments and those of the 1961 Kennedy speech: ‘. . . ask what you can do for your country,’ have provided the keystones for almost every commencement speech since.
Most commencement addresses still discuss what is ahead, but times and the country have changed, and such sentiments have little appeal. For example, the first shock graduates will receive is the sum total of their loans and the incredibly complex terms of repayment. The second tremor will be the affects those obligations will have on their efforts to satisfy personal basic needs, i.e., housing, food, health, finances in general, social relationships, safety, etc, for the foreseeable future.
Perhaps a more helpful message for moderns might be: in the last four years you completed your studies while making friends and choices of your own. You have achieved your degrees. Now comes the hard part – life. Buckle up and hold tight.
phoenixnyc over 7 years ago
Best line is from my sister’s undergrad commencement, when the speaker invented a new beatitude:
“Blessed are the brief, for they shall be invited back!”
RAGs over 7 years ago
I once made a graduation card for a friend’s nephew which read, “Now the REAL education begins.”
patlaborvi over 7 years ago
A friend of mine got married on the same day he graduated from college, he once told me that the only thing he remembered from graduation was looking up at the speaker and thinking, “hurry up and finish, I have to get to my wedding.”