High School Graduation Speech: June 2005
For old memories’ sake, this was 4 years ago for my fellow classmates at Homestead High School in 2005.
Welcome fellow classmates and parents to this wonderful baccalaureate ceremony.
Many of us can remember the first time we came home after curfew. There sat our moms and dads waiting to give us a lecture on how irresponsible we were for making them worry. By now, if we come home after curfew, we are independent enough to take the lecture and shake it off. Others of us spent our time being productive by hiding our progress reports and grades from our parents in order to continue with our social lives. These rites of passage are now just distant memories. Perhaps not favorable ones, but as we stand here today, the past is irreversible, and this is our final and finest week as students on this campus. We are now moving on, pursuing careers, a higher education …a life of responsibility we have all proved capable of managing.
Our parents can laugh now as they look back on all of the lies we told them and actually thought we had them fooled. At the same time, we as graduates get to contemplate all of the secrets we never cared to fill them in on. Parents, you may still see us as your innocent children who slept with a night light until we were twelve, but we’re more ready for the real world than you think.
Success blooms from a lot of hard work and a touch of luck. Someone once said, “Luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparation.” Fortunately for us, we have both with over four years of experience in preparation, and we have learned where to find opportunities for ourselves. So for us, perhaps luck isn’t completely out of our control.
High school wasn’t just about algebra and reading novels- it was about life. 4 years, 25 teachers, 1100 hours at school. Realistically, more than half of these hours were spent learning common sense and how to interact with people both younger and older. If anything, this time here has forced us to grow up, be independent, and make our own decisions.
It has been a long four years, although now it seems short. We finally realize how much we may miss all of the acquaintances we met in our classes and never got to hang out with outside of school. We won’t have piles of worksheets to finish or books to color, and after four years, we now have four short days to get used to the fact that we are moving on and reaching towards our futures.
Encourage us as we use our newfound independence to climb the highest mountain even if its dangerous, but be prepared to comfort us if we fall, and laugh with us if we stumble. We all have memories of high school, but it is our embarrassing moments that have catalyzed our growth. Now, we can look back and be glad we won’t make the same choices in the years to come… although the next few years will have its share of embarrassments, too. Class of 2005- live life to fulfill your dreams, for a mistake can only be a learning experience. And, we will succeed, at least eventually.
–> Where has this led us? It has been 4 more years, and we are now graduating from college. What would I say today to my classmates?
Perhaps we shall see, if I ever feel an inspiration to write…
