Graduation Speech : High School Essay

When I was younger, I would often return home to a familiar question: So, what did you learn today? My answer would always be "nothing" or "stuff." As I look back, I never lied, yet, I never told the whole truth. Many people think that you don't know anything with only 18 years of experience; I think they're wrong. I've learned a lot about myself and others from the relationships I have built throughout the years. I believe my most important lessons were "people" lessons. Those are the ones which could never be taught out of a book or in a lecture; you have to go out and experience them for yourself.

WOW! So much has happened since June. The SV FFA and ag department had a rough start to our year losing three of our students who were on the FFA officer team to other schools. Even with this bump in the road, the four officers that remained visited Mt. Shasta City and had a blast bonding and learning more about each other at their officer retreat in August. Once school started we found three new officers and attended COLC (Chapter Officer Leadership Conference) where the entire team learned about their diverse leadership styles and were able to bond together as the official Surprise Valley FFA Chapter Officer Team for the 2017-2018 school year. If you see them around, congratulate President Cindy Hinze, V.P. Maddison Seely, Secretary Maya

You have fulfilled a quantifiable set of requirements, but what did you really learn? You learned a little something about quadratic equations, how to write the perfect English essay, or the causes of the Civil War. Our most important lessons, however, cannot be recited or written down and turned in for a grade. These lessons involve friendship, hard work, love, and dedication.

Well, this is it, the day all of us have been waiting for has finally arrived. It seems like only yesterday we were picking our noses and flicking them at innocent bystanders or yelling childish phrases like, "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" or, wait, that was yesterday. Never mind. Anyways.

Dreams. The dictionary's definition of a dream is "To have great ambition or to really hope for something". Well, I say make those ambitions a reality and hope active.

There's a recurring question that often presents itself at different points in our lives. We ask it to ourselves in private and are asked by others at any given time. It comes from those we are yet to know well and from those who can see us with their eyes closed. It goes to the tune of, "What do you want to do someday?" or "What do you want to be?" and it rarely comes with a monosyllabic reply. The routine "I don't know," or shrug are devoted companions of this question, though every now and then an individual can focus the future before his or her eyes and give it a name. For the rest of us, the specifics may still be hazy. I can say with certainty that my response to this questions is consistently inarticulate. I do take solace,

Students in honors classes often have many stereotypes that follow them around. The students are labeled as the ‘smart’ kids, they are assumed to know how to do assignments with ease, teased (usually in a kind matter) about having to achieve that 100% on a test, and it is assumed that the classes are quite boring since the students must be focused on their studies. Being in the class with an honors class proved some of said stereotypes false and others true. If this class had any representation of the rest of 10th grade honors classes, then it can be said that honors students help themselves learn by creating an environment that helps them become excited to be in class.

I like that word, graduates. In fact, I like that word so much, that I decided to look it up in the dictionary for the heck of it. And beyond the obvious definitions I found, there was one that plainly stuck out. "To change gradually". Now if you think about it, I guess that sums up all our years of schooling right there. I mean, I can still remember back to first grade and racing home to watch the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles defeat Shredder and the evil foot soldiers. Of course, Michelangelo was my favorite because he was the care-free surfer turtle that every boy dreamed of being like. Well, cartoons didn't last long in junior high, and my first real change occurred because of the

When they were trying to find someone to give this speech they first asked the most intelligent, smart person they could find. But she turned them down. So then they asked the most beautiful, lovely, attractive person they could find. She also turned them down. Next they asked the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most sincere person they could find. Then I decided it would be rude to turn them down three times in a row, so here I am.

A boy once approached Socrates with the desire to obtain wisdom. Without saying a word, Socrates led the boy down to the edge of the sea and walked in, beckoning him to follow. When they were standing waist deep in the water, Socrates pushed the boy down, completely submerging his head. He held him thus for a couple of minutes, until the boy was almost to the point of death, before letting him up. Sputtering and angry, the boy demanded to know why Socrates had held him underwater for so long. In response, Socrates asked, "when you were under the water, what did you want more than anything in the world?"

I rediscovered something while trying to think of my speech for tonight. History repeats itself. Everything I felt compelled to say I knew has been said before and will be said in times to come. I grew dismayed at the thought that the human race has progressed so little that the same advice has as much merit now as it did when it was first given, millenniums ago. Yet there is a simple beauty in this. It reassures us that humans will always be human; that everyone is experiencing life for the first time, no matter how many ancestors lie before them. Since we are each seeing life anew, the same truths will occur again and again. These truths have brought us to this point in history; they will carry us for the rest of our lives.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, "You are a very special person - become what you are." These words encourage us, the graduating class of 2012, to recognize the goodness and potential in each and every one of us and to go out and excel in the world. We are a diverse group of different aspirations and backgrounds, bound for different corners of the earth to carve out our won individual niches. Before we leave behind Lee Falls High School and each other, we must ask ourselves how we have become who we are.

Welcome staff, students, family, and graduates. Today marks a special day in our lives. Today is the day of our graduation. It seems with every graduating class there is a certain amount of responsibility placed on the graduates. For this year’s class it is no different, in fact more has been placed on this class than any others in history.

Hayes glanced at the poster of the newly opened school. The school had been closed all summer to make way for new renovations to the classrooms in order to make them more technologically advanced for the newcomers. There were some buildings that were still under construction, but most of the main buildings had been finished to reopen to the students.

Entering college introduces students to several challenges that go further than high school academics. First- year students are to understand a new social environment they are in, try and fit in with other at the new institution, adapt to new things and responsibilities, comprehend the distance from hometown friends and family, involve yourself in the career of your choice (Credé, & Niehorster 2011). Students struggle with the transition from high school to college. Many students do not believe that the transition is hard from going to high school then to college.