Summary Of Dear Grads DonT Do What You Love By Carl Muey

The article It’s Not About You by David Brooks, presented the struggle in today’s society for graduating students, due to the trouble of finding passions or use of strengths. “Instead, they will confront amazingly diverse job markets, social landscapes, and lifestyle niches. Most will spend a decade wandering from job to job and clique to clique, searching for a role.” (Brooks 4). Newly graduated students have had difficulty discovering their strength and weaknesses. Instead, students should find themselves before taking on life's journey. “This year’s graduates are members of the most supervised generation in American history. Through their childhoods and teenage years, they have been monitored, tutored, coached and honed to an unprecedented

What I just recited was a selection from "Oh, The Places You'll Go!", a graduation speech as prepared by Dr. Seuss. I chose to recite this because its optimism toward beginning a new phase of life seemed to fit our class. It reminded me of our entrance into high school, when as freshmen, we blew away the students and staff at Stoks high School with our incredible enthusiasm and spirit. We didn't allow ourselves to be intimidated by the upperclassmen, or by our new surroundings. By the time we had completed our first Homecoming activities, coming in second place only to the seniors, we had established a certain respect, and it became evident that the Class of 2006 was capable of achieving greatness.

As a young man entering my senior year of high school, my mind races as I try to figure out what it is that I’ll commit my life to. What will be the driving passion, the purpose of my existence, the reason I get out of bed every morning to face another day of this life? Some people would try to encourage me to choose a career simply for its potential to make me wealthy. However, looking at the degenerate lives of the rich and the famous around the world, its apparent to me that the pursuit of earthly riches alone isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. I’d rather spend my days in pursuit of something more fulfilling. As far as I can tell from my

The tone is encouraging because it focuses on being optimistic and supportive for their future, which is the main goal for all students to be aware and to “never give in to despair” (Mccaskill). The speech conveys a purpose and a message for students to remember and to always have this engraved in their minds and hearts. Furthermore, he wants the audience to be aware of hardship and running this journey as future doctors, lawyers, teachers, or any professional career that will be difficult, but believing yourself is the key essential in life to follow that

“I feel sorry for the person who can't get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile” (Walter Chrysler). Deciding on what one wants to be in life can prove to be a demanding task. There are so many, yet limited, different opportunities in the world to have an excellent career and make a decent living while doing something one loves. It is limited because there are only a few specific career paths that someone could take to make good money. It is very difficult to make a fulfilling living being a garbage man. There are many different opportunities because, within these specific careers, there are usually various paths to take. Someone who has dreams to be a

College is an opportunity to truly discover who you are. Often enough, you hear people saying “You should really major in this field, I think you would really enjoy this career.” or, “Do you think you really want to study that? Have you thought about what you will be doing ten years from now?” filling your mind with self doubt, uncertainty, and the anxiousness of not knowing what you want to do with the rest of your life. Mark Edmundson wrote an article titled, Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?, published in Oxford American addressing college students and their families how the most important thing college students should focus on is personal growth. When students take their courses seriously their engagement can help finding out who they really are and which future career will lead not necessarily to great financial success, but to a career and life that is very satisfying. Edmundson wants to inspire his audience and have them take what he is saying seriously. Edmundson uses satirical informal language and hypothetical situations to effectively persuade college students to focus on their personal growth in order to create a life and career that is deeply fulfilling.

In order to credibly appeal to the audience, Talbot interviews multiple officials such as “the principal of Sarasota High” (223) and a “Stanford education professor” (226); she provides multiple educated views on the valedictorian issue noticed in her writing. When the author mentions the interviewed authorities who are well educated and highly statured, a more credible argument is seen, and the audience believes her more because of all of the authoritative people who have personally experienced valedictorian issues and can confidently come to a conclusion on whether or not they are beneficial. Additionally, Talbot interviews students along with experts to defend her message that the valedictorian issue causes much more harm than benefits. She states that she recently interviewed “some students” who were “involved” in valedictorian issues (227). Then, she cites “two professors” and interviews a mother of a student at Sarasota High School to gain many perspectives on the topic (230, 231).

For almost two centuries, the system of public education has honored the best and the brightest high school graduates with the honorable titles of valedictorian and salutatorian.Though these titles have been a valued part of graduation for what seem like the entire history of American public schooling, they are under heavy scrutiny as impassioned and angry parents, as well as their hardworking students, attack the idea of only recognizing one or two of the class’s most talented seniors. In “Best in Class”, reporter Margaret Talbot challenges the traditional system of choosing a single valedictorian by by exposing the emotional opposition to the system’s change or preservation; her use of emotional dialogue as well as far less emotional, far more objective writing style allows Talbot to emphasize specific ideas and opinions with syntax to avoid confrontation, while simultaneously establishing that it is time for the traditional system of valedictory to change.

In Ho’ text, she depicts a similar scenario post-graduation that continues this route of “the perfect success”. Being one of the graduating classes of Princeton, Ho asks a bewildering question, “How do so many undergraduates...who once aspired to become, say writers or teachers, “realize” by the time they graduate that they have always wanted to go to Wall Street” (170)? The actual question that Ho is implying is- what causes so many students to sacrifice their dreams of becoming “writers or teachers” (170) to go to Wall Street? The driving force behind the scene is indeed what causes the “route to success” revealed by Davidson- the increasingly rigid definition of success. In the past, diverse college curriculum nourishes developments in different fields. However, society’s definition of success becomes more and more strict. In our current education system, students are promoted to obtain the most “prestigious” jobs such as “banking [or] consulting” (169) to prove that they are successful. This is indeed why Ho decides to put quotation marks around the word “realize” (170)- to indicate the implicit meaning behind the her words. The Princeton students do not suddenly realize their desire to work at Wall Street; instead, they realize the need to comply with society’s standards of success when deciding for their future. Thus, as demonstrated by both Davidson and Ho, a narrowing definition of success limits individuals to a standard route

The commencement speech, “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace is widely known due to the amazing message it provides. Wallace’s speech is unlike any other, which are usually very positive, inspirational, and oftentimes cliche. He asserts that the value behind an education is learning how to become aware of what we choose to think, and in doing so it brings freedom and vitality to an individual. His speech is very unorthodox, the structure is very different to normal graduation speeches, making his oration unique and special. Wallace uses rhetorical appeals to speak with recent graduates.

In David Foster Wallace’s Kenyon Commencement Address, he tells the graduate students that in order to fully receive an education, they first must learn to think. Through his use of dry humor, Wallace gives the college graduates a realistic view on life after college, and how it will be physically, mentally, and emotionally draining and lead to boredom and frustration. However, he provides them with tools to combat these negative emotions in hopes to lessen the stress they will encounter in their daily lives.

Thank you for having us read the tragedy of Willy Loman, The Death of a Salesman. You can work hard at anything, but if you are not passionate about it, you will get nowhere. It reminds me of one of my brothers that didn't realize he was chasing the wrong dream until it was too late. At school he was pursing different subjects, but at home he was passionate about music and rapping. Since he was an exceptional artist, he decided to go to an art school. Soon he realized it wasn't for him and dropped out, and now he has to start over. We must realize now while we still have the time and resources what we want from life and what we are passionate about. If we don't ask ourselves these questions now, we may not have later to consider them.

Famous actors, musicians, politicians, artists and authors are often called upon to deliver commencement addresses at prestigious places of higher learning. It doesn't take Nobel-Prize-winning social scientists or psychologists, or speech professors to predict what these elite guest speakers will say on such occasions such as these. The speaker will tell the graduating class to aim high, never give up, make the most of opportunities, and do as our forbearers did: pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. But when Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks showed up at Vassar College to present the commencement address, his presentation avoided those clichés and platitudes. Hanks was refreshing original and yet remarkably pragmatic. This paper critiques Hanks' themes, examines his rhetorical techniques, and editorially analyzes his purpose.

Graduation is an exciting time in a person’s life, especially a high school graduation. When I think of family and friends gathering together to celebrate a joyous occasion, I feel I accomplished my strongest goal. It never occurred to me that graduation would be the end of my youth and the start of adulthood. Graduating from high school was an influential event that gave me an altered outlook on my existence. Life before graduation, preparing for graduation day, and commencement day overwhelmed me for reality.

As he nears graduation, McCoy is taking all the interviews he can, just hoping to land something, and realizes that he may have to settle for a position in sales. “They say they have enough engineers, and I guess they figure it’s easier to teach a technical person how to sell than to teach a salesperson to be technical.” (230) I can understand Brian McCoy’s concern over his future. As graduation get’s closer, he realizes that his future might not be as secure as he first thought it was going to be. I find it upsetting, that a student fresh out of college, has to be hit with the huge disappointment of not being able to find a decent job within their major. All a person can do, is try not to be discouraged and keep searching for that job of their dreams.