College Speech : My Graduation Speech

Good afternoon [name of members of the head table], teachers, parents, students, fellow graduates and distinguished guests. I must first and foremost thank God for this blessing and honor to stand before you today as Valedictorian of the Class of 2011. Yet, today is not only my day to shine. Every graduate present here is deserving of high praise and recognition and I would like to congratulate each of you on reaching this milestone in life. I think I speak for my fellow graduates when I say that this is a moment we have always imagined and one we will remember for the rest of our lives.

Nowadays, teenagers and young adults are graduating high school and college and are unable to find jobs. A lot of them lack the basic skills needed to survive during adulthood. Institutions exist mainly to educate people on what they need to maintain a somewhat decent lifestyle. Students have been forced to take classes on a variety of subjects throughout high school, most of which have nothing to do with what they need to prepare them for life after education. Even in college, a majority of students do not know what career field they would like to enter, so when they graduate it is hard for them to get a job anywhere. Institutions are not arming students with the proper information needed to excel after education. So, new classes should be created and required for students to pass before graduating. They will be based on basic skills such as money management, customer service skills, and credit understanding.

Four years of my life drained away at this place called Troy High School. After this year I will be walking away from Troy, worn and torn from the hours of anticipation for grades to be posted, the next weekend to arrive, the answer to whether that special someone will say yes to the next dance, or the unbearable wait for that painstaking bell to ring. Troy is a place of education, a very good one at that, with its Blue Ribbon Award and national recognition, you’d think I would be walking away with knowledge that will serve me well for decades to come, but no. I could have learned the same things I learned at Troy anywhere, it is the insight I picked up that will take me far. “What insight?” you ask. Its priceless wisdom really, it’s a

Some people have asked to read the commencement address I delivered this morning to the 2013 graduates of Butler University. So here it is.

No matter your hatred or love for this place, it’s all you’ve got and it’s given you all you need. It has blessed you with a preview of the big, real world and all the struggles life will throw your way. Along with this great privilege, we are taught lessons we will remember forever. Senior, Hannah Dennis, says she will never forget that, “You can do so much good, and people are still going to point out the negatives. Keep trying and never give up on your dreams.” Whether you believe it, or not, all the hardships you are being faced with today are only sculpting you into your own individual.

The Great Being saith and I quote: “Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom”.

Getting to this point wasn’t easy, but we all made it. Some of us had more difficulties then others but with the help of our families, our teachers, and each other we all pushed through. During our tenure at Bright Futures Academy we have made and lost some friends on the path to success but we know that wins and losses are both the risks you must take to be great. As we move on to the next phase of our lives whether it’s post-secondary education, joining the armed forces, or seeking employment, there will be many more challenges for us to face. So it is important for us to continue to make smart decisions because we know that according to statistics we weren’t supposed to make it this far.

As much as my freshman year self didn’t want to admit it, I knew going into my first year at Lowell High School that my life, and myself, were going to be different when I left four years later. Throughout my high school career I watched myself change, becoming more confident in myself and curious about the world around me. However, I was unable to pinpoint why that change was happening. I still had the same friends, did the same sports, and had the same hobbies as I had all throughout high school. After some deep reflection, I realized that during my junior year, there wasn’t a day that I didn't wake up more mature. The change happened slowly throughout that year, the big catalyst being my foreign exchange student from Spain, Paula Sebastia-Puig. Looking back on those 10 months with Paula, I realized she helped broaden my perspective on the world around me and grow as a person.

“We’re all just kids who grew up way too fast.” (unknown) Life is about learning lessons, survival techniques and most importantly knowing who you are. Being a young child you could not possibly fathom what life will be like as a teen growing into an adult. Thinking I knew who I was and what I wanted, but boy was I so wrong. Still finding myself and in the past four months I have picked to my core. Knowing my strengths as being reliable, patient, independent, caring and loving (too much sometimes), brave, trustworthy, dedicated, compassionate, determined, and I hold a lot of leadership positions. In nine months I will be walking with the class 2018; we all will be starting the journey we have always dreamed. Venturing off and grow as an individual, getting a fresh start and to accomplish the dreams I have always dreamed; heading towards the Elementary Education program through Pittsburg State University. Knowing yourself, accepting life and finding your purpose are the key essentials to success.

College and life after will become increasingly harder as time goes on, facing many more challenges and life-changing events. Failing is inevitable in the future. Just like the time when Eddie failed his teller test several times, I won’t let test failures hold me down, and instead will learn from them and keep trying. Firings from his job, deaths in his family, and any other circumstance didn’t define him, and instead, he kept going on. During college and throughout my life, I’ll continue what I’ve done for many years; make friends. I’ve always enjoyed meeting people and forming new relationships, and like Mr. Rivera spoke about many times, one day, one of those people could lead me to an opportunity that I couldn’t reach on my own. I won’t hesitate to try and talk to others either, because at any point, I could get an opportunity, just as he did with the barber shop

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” - Albert Einstein. It can easily be said that my high school career was driven by this saying. From the first day of grade nine I decided that I was going to become an active and prominent member of the school community, not for the recognition, but so that when I graduate I can look back on my years at O’Connor and be proud of the mark I left on the school.

Before my senior year in high school I dreaded the thought of writing a paper, writing came as an immense struggle for me. I never had any confidence in what I wrote; I couldn’t help feeling that my writing was very subpar when compared to that of my classmates. It always seemed that the reason for my passing grades on papers was due to my teachers trying to rush through grading, rather than my ability as a writer. I felt like this was a reoccurring theme ever since I had entered middle school, because of this I felt my confidence as a writer slip from me slowly but surely. This continued until I met Mrs. Blevens, the instructor for my senior year writing class. I felt like she was the first teacher that I had that cared about her students writing. No person comes close to what she did for me my writing like she does. Mrs. Blevens knew how to push her students out of their comfort zone, probably the most important thing you can do for a young writer. In order to grow as a writer you need to be pushed at times in order to gain, even if it makes you uncomfortable and that’s exactly what Mrs. Blevens did for me.

II. Main Point (state as a single declarative sentence): The progress that I have made helped me lead up to writing well-developed essays. The main reason I believe my essays are improved because of the time I take on my pre-writing.

Despite the fact, that some parents don 't want their children to fail in their education, failure is something that students should be able to value and parents should consider this a time of opportunity to learn from their mistake because my parents gave me the opportunity to fail and later on in life I achieved success from my fail and my personal experience as well as sherry connects with how failure improved education. For example in her essay, “ In Praise of the F word”, she states how countless students do not have the skills they need to succeed and how diplomas for students don’t value anything. Furthermore, she in the essay it also give a personal experiences about her son and how she as a parent had to make a decision. Therefore, what happened with her son also happened my mother with me. However, I was a nine year old and my parents had to decide if I should funk the second grade or pass. As a result, this had to be a fail or a success which sherry argues that educators and parents should not treat the word Failure as taboo with students but should treat it as a learning experience (559-601) . Correspondingly, educators and parents need to understand that the word “failure” in relation to education is tolerable and it should approved in the 2015.

Every day, I make sure to take time out to reflect upon how grateful I feel to be put in the situation I am today. There are so many instances I can recall of throughout high school when I felt very uncertain about myself and my family’s future, however, we learned to persevere and overcome these many obstacles which unexpectedly set me up and prepared me for the many opportunities I now have today at Gonzaga University.