Commencement Address

It is graduation season, High School, College and Graduate schools all have students finishing their formal education.  A common feature of graduations, is a commencement speaker.  I am unlikely to ever be invited as a commencement speaker, if I was here is some of what I would have to say: 

You came here via a variety of paths.  For some of you, your families started planning for this day, before you were conceived,  some of you are following the footsteps of older sibling, parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.  Some of you are the first in your family to stand where you stand today.  For some, this was given to you, others have earned and paid for every book, every class, every page of printer paper.  Some of you will finish debt free, others will be paying for this for years to come.  And that is okay.  None of my grandparents finished high school, my mother did, my father earned his GED after his youngest finished high school.  

I was the first in my family to earn a college degree, working full time and going to school half time I earned it and paid for it.  I went on to earn a doctorate in my field, for that I took on enough in student loans to buy a new Mercedes, I sacrificed and paid off my loans in less than 8 years.  

How you got here, and how this was paid for no longer matters, you have earned the degree, it is yours and no one can ever take that away from you.  You are among the most highly educated people on earth.  

Your education is not ending today, it is just beginning.  If your high school, college or graduate program has succeeded, you have learned how to learn, how to form questions, seek information, develop understanding and connections, express and back up an informed opinion.  You have learned how to communicate in a complex world.  You have learned from the past, so that you understand the present and shape the future.  You have learned about science, real science based on verifiable facts.  You have learned to understand interactions between people and beings.  You have developed an understanding of numbers, mathematics, and economics.  

Never stop learning.  Let a healthy curiosity about the world take you to places and understanding you have never dreamed of.  Like a tomato, as long as you are growing you are healthy, the moment you are ripe, you start to rot.  Never let your quest for knowledge end, read, listen, travel, explore, experiment, experience the world and beyond.  Do it because you can.  Break free of your past and create the future, and please take us along for the ride. 

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What one piece of advice do you have for this years graduates?