Graduation Speech : A Good Result From A New Experience, Comes From Good Guidance

A higher education has been an important priority in my life. While I realized a high school education was important, my parents expected more. They said if I wanted to succeed in life, a college education was something that I could not live without. What they don’t tell you is how exhausting and confusing the process is to get even into.

How are you doing? This is Will, the tall black guy you would sometimes see in service. I'm writing to say goodbye. My project in Carson City came to an end and I've moved back to Texas. Thank you so much for making me feel at home at Hope. Your messages kept me going while I was in Reno. God used your words to truly bless me and also show me where I need to improve. Sorry I didn't get a chance to say goodbye in person, but everything happened so fast.

As result of creating and implementing this artifact, I realized that the most effective lesson plans are those which initiate with the final assessment in mind. So, I applied a pre-test at the very beginning of my lessons with every different group I would be teaching to measure a starting point or the amount of pre-existing knowledge on the topics to be taught. Based on this, I planned the instruction to deliver and how to differentiate it.

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.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, faculty, staff, graduates of the Class of 2012, families and friends.

During our lives, most of us have hated getting up early. Whether we as humans enjoy mornings or not, we’re always looking forward to that unforgettable day. That special is high school graduation for me. Graduation is a ceremony that recognizes students that have excelled through school. Graduation was one of the best days of my life, perhaps even better than the day that I started college. There is no other day like graduation where there comes this feeling of success, achievement, and excitement.

I agonized over writing this speech for a long time, because I felt like nothing I could say would make a difference, first because I don't know if what I could say would be good advice, and second because I don't know if advice about things like being true to yourself and setting goals and all that is actually helpful. How can I give advice that I can't even follow in my own life? And even if you are mesmerized for my two minutes, you would walk out of here and your life wouldn't be any different. Or maybe you'd be inspired for a day, and then forget. But still, the speech had to be written.

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

Christopher Columbus, reflecting on his voyage which led him to the discovery of America, said, "Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World." I am sure that after four years of high school, we have all formed our own opinion of Christopher Columbus - especially if you had Mrs. Powers - but whether you view him as a genocidal rogue or the first American Hero, I find his quote fitting for where we stand today.

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.

Good evening and welcome to the commencement ceremonies of the class of 2006. It has been a long journey, somewhere around 18 years, but we've finally reached the piece de resistance of our high school years.

We all have had many stones read to us, and even read many ourselves. In elementary school they were stories of Lad, Jane and Spot. Each of us beamed with pride as we stumbled over that first line of "See Lad go," or "Run Jane run." Then, in junior high we learned about plot and theme, and the characters of the stories actually developed personalities. Now, as graduating seniors, many of us have learned that stories can teach us valuable lessons about life. Even the simple stories from elementary school contain lessons that we can relate to our own experiences. One story in particular that just happens to be from my favorite producer, Disney, and emphasizes the importance of friendship is "The Fox and The Hound." As this story

While a necessary step in any dedicated academic’s life, the graduation of high school is not always a cakewalk to accomplish. With the obstacle of mental illness in my way, I found the task of graduating high school and moving on to college to be a mammoth that I felt not healthy enough to conquer. In the second half of my high school career, I found myself in physical and mental states so poor that I missed approximately one third of my desk hours in my junior year. The possibility of returning to school, let alone graduating with my class, seemed bleak.

I think this question begs to realize why “success” and retention are issues in the first place, and that that realization is different for faculty than it is for the administration. I’ve been present at numerous faculty meetings outlining why these two things are at odds, and how we can unite them. I’ve read multiple studies on why students drop out, and heard anecdotes about what colleges and faculty do to keep community college students in school. “Success” is much more subjective than retention, which is a numbers game. Retention also provides a measurement for something as abstract as success. Ultimately, I often feel at a loss as to how to define success or bridge the college’s goals with the student’s goals, and my lack of experience shows up most conspicuously here. Over my four years at this college, I have learned to deal with this issue in two ways, and both directly deal with the students: one is to approach the issue through providing outside support, and the other is by providing inside support. This means something particular to me and there are numerous strategies I employ for each.

As a future teacher, it is extremely important to get as much experience in the classroom as possible in order to be ready to teach without assistance after graduation. By having 20 hours of observation the two semesters before entering the education program, it is beneficial to experience life in the classroom, reflect on the things learned, and one day be able to implement them into one’s own classroom one day. This paper will discuss my personal experience in my field placement and connect it to what I have learned in the EDUC 2130 class. During my observation times, I learned many things, including but not limited to, effective classroom management techniques and diversity throughout the classroom.