Graduation Speech : A College Student

I have been going to school since I was four years old and, that means that I have been attending school twenty to twenty two years, including kindergarten, middle school, high school and now college. As every student, I had my ups and downs in school; I had some failures and some successes. One of the failures that affected me the most and that I will always remember was the time that I was in high school during my junior year. I failed almost all my classes and, I only passed two classes and with a C. In the other hand I had some really good success. The most recent one and the one that I am still happy about is getting my Family Development Credential. We learn from our mistakes and also from our successes, these two times in my life

Throughout life people go through so many adversities. Whether it be good or bad there is always something that arises out of the situation. One of the most thrilling, but yet frightening events to take place throughout someone’s life would be graduation. For many people, graduating from high school is an objective. It takes a lot of time, effort, and determination to accomplish that goal. For others graduation is the end of high school, and the beginning of a new chapter in life. When graduated people feel as if adulthood has begun. In the long run, graduating opens a lot of opportunities for people to thrive.

Throughout my entire life, I had always been taught to stay quiet and listen to everyone around me. Now, it is my turn to tell everyone what it is that I have learned during that time. Since I grew up with a Mexican family it was hard to attend school and transition from knowing my native Spanish tongue to English. I spent most of my time in an English school environment until I got to high school. In high school, I realized how important it was to embrace my native tongue. Not everyone does that, especially during high school, thus influencing my decision to go to college and major in Spanish. My plan is to graduate college, receive a teaching credential to teach high school students not only how to learn the language or improve on it but

In the commencement speech entitled “This is Water,” the speaker came to highlight to the graduates at the commencement ceremony, what the “real world “was like because he thought they are not alert enough to know. He made reference to this through the anecdote at the beginning where the two young fish didn’t know what water was and of course water is life to fishes. Therefore, the speaker found it necessary to tell what life was really about through a commencement speech because of his opinion that they may have limited knowledge concerning it. In paragraph 6 of his speech, he states “The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what ‘day in, day out’ really means. There happen to be whole large part of adult

“Congratulations! You have been accepted to Bentley University for fall of 2015!” Words could not express how ecstatic this message made me. As soon as the acceptance email popped up on my phone, I screamed, dropped my backpack, and sprinted over to my track and field teammates to celebrate this triumphant occasion. After years of challenging AP courses, eleven seasons of tiring school sports, and countless extracurricular clubs, I finally felt like all of my hard work had paid off. At that moment, the only thought in my head was “I’m going to Bentley!” My dream — an aspiration I’ve had since my freshman year of high school — was becoming a reality.

When growing up, I loved going to school and dreamed of one day attending college. Attending school every day and receiving good grades had become my top priority from K-12. I excelled from K-8th grade, but entering into high school was completely different than primary school. The atmosphere and environment was new to me, I was free to roam the halls or walk back out the door without any repercussions. This began my downward spiral in high school. My freshman year was by far the best school year for me because that would be the only passing year. The remainder of the three years would be met with skipping, failing, and repeating courses. I learned that it was easy to fail, but hard to catch up! With this motto, I had practically given up on going to school or graduating at this point. My only choice was to obtain a GED, but this was met with dismay too! I would have to wait for my graduating school year to take the test and that would be another year. After speaking with my counselor, she informed me that my school credits were only at ninety and two hundred were needed to graduate. I should have been in the eleventh grade, but my credits were equivalent to a tenth grader and this when a decision was made that graduating from high school with a diploma had become important for me.

In the spring of 2014, I graduated as valedictorian from Klukwan High School located in the Panhandle of Alaska. During my high school career, I maintained status on the high honor roll and received the title of Student of the Month the first month of every school year for four years. In 2011 and 2012, I was selected to attend the Youth Leadership Institute in Anchorage as a student delegate for the Chatham School District. There, I met other high school students from all over Alaska. We spent our time at the conference exercising our newfound leadership skills in fun icebreaker games and group activities. We also learned about our own unique leadership styles, and how we can apply them to various situations back home or anywhere.

Growing up, all I ever heard was the word college. From the old days of kinder garden and especially up until senior year of high school my entire life revolved around what college I wanted to go to. I believe that most people see a college education as a luxury, a grand accomplishment. There’s many different type of colleges to go to; community college, state universities, and so on. For me, the biggest thing is not where I go to college. For me, the biggest thing is simply to finish my college education and be able to walk across a stage and receive my diploma. A college education is valuable to me because it will help me in life. I will benefit from a college education career-wise, financially, and personally.

As a group we decided to include a “College Success” course for freshman within out First Year Experience. Instead of making the course required, we would prefer to make the class optional and offered for 2 credits. The class would be for 50 minutes per day and either Monday and Wednesday or Tuesday and Thursday and available both spring and fall semesters for first-year students at High Point University. The course would be recommended to all freshman for the fall semester in order to assist in the transition to college life, but would be offered spring semester as well for students who struggled first semester with becoming acclimated to the university.

I was an average student in high school. I took a few challenging and AP courses, but I wasn’t an overachiever who earned an A in every course, however, I also wasn’t failing any of my class. I was the student who did the minimum work that was needed to pass the course. This eventually resulted in meeting with my assigned school counselor only once a year because it was mandatory. However, during my junior year I really began to focus on my future because I knew my years as a high school was coming to an end. But because I didn’t have a relationship with my assigned school counselor, whom I felt was too busy with other students on her caseload because her office door was often close, I chose to seek out to another school counselor on campus. The high school counselor who helped answer my questions regarding college and gave me information about the SAT test dates and fee wavier was Mr. Rios. Due to help I received from Mr. Rios, I later joined the school volunteer club Mr. Rios was the faculty staff in charge of that later helped me build my resume, life experiences, and network. With the relationship with Mr. Rios, I chose to interview him because he inspires me to continue working hard in graduate school so that I too, can have a similar position like him as a high school counselor in the near future.

Over the last few years of high school I feel like I changed in a positive way because in the beginning of my freshmen year of high school, I didn’t really think of how much my grades would affect my chances of graduating and going to college. I didn’t think I would make it this far and it didn’t matter to me because dropping out and getting a GED seemed like an easy way out for me at the time. But I realized that life could be hard out there when all you’ll have is GED that gets you little job opportunities when you could just finish school, work on getting your diploma and maybe go to college to study for what you’d want to do for a career that can get you tons of job opportunities because of the experience you have.

College degrees are becoming more common to enter into jobs in the times that we live in now. I know first-hand being a student that a college degree can help me earn more money. I decided to come back to school after graduating high school a little more than 6 years ago. I went out and got a job, more like a few jobs, before I decided that I was better than minimum wage and that the amount of stress I was taking on just was not worth what I was getting paid. I knew I could do better and that I indeed wanted better for myself. Going to college you take classes that teach you skills that you need in the working world, you learn to apply those skills, and after completing a degree you are on you way to high wages. One thing is certain, College provides a better career opportunity for students, regardless of major.

It has become apparent now more than ever that having a college education is an unavoidable requisite in order to better ourselves. Every year thousands of students graduate high school and start to enroll in college. Another key factor in the decision towards obtaining a college degree is the example the young student saw at home; however, not all of the young students entering college come from a family with college graduate parents, which can play as a huge motivation in their path toward their college degree. Many people see this as the start of a new journey into the path of success since most Americans grow up with the idea that a college education will help us better our lives as well as to bring us success. According to Scott-Clayton from Columbia University, “Individuals with bachelor’s degrees earn about 60 percent more than those with just a high school diploma.” Today, we must not only acquire a high school education, but also graduate with a Bachelor’s degree. A college degree itself won’t guarantee you success, but it would give you the necessary tools and knowledge to achieve economic and personal success. In the future, the knowledge you achieved from your college education will become beneficial in plenty of ways.

Do you ever wonder if the students in high school are thinking about going to the next level after graduation? Its defiantly one of the best ideas to make and that’s from my own personal experience. College isn’t for everyone; we all know that saying. But what people don’t understand is how far they can grow in your dreams and careers in the future. Transitioning from high school to college is a big step forward, even though; most students aren’t ready for college but they have amazing high schools that give them everything they need so they are able to succeed in their future college lives.

Have you ever wondered what changed and remained the same about yourself, mentally and physically, during your high school career? Change in mentality throughout high school is such a popular topic that terms such as "senioritis" exsist in attempts to explain the change in mentality throughout the start and end of a student 's time during high school. Also, on the physical side, many people find the changes that happen to their bodies in the duration of the four years extreme. For example, some people might start Freshman year around five feet tall with little to no muscles, but they may graduate high school around six feet tall and find themselves benching 275 pounds. In high school, many things change and stay the same such as your mentality towards academics and your physical body.