Graduation Speech :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

When I first began considering a commencement ceremony speech, my initial impulse was to spend this time discussing the advent of college preparation at Ridgemont, and the rise of empty values. I thought it would be a hefty chance to point out the fact that the quest for college admission has primer coat some of the best people I know into pulp, and that for the most disassemble it calculates as though both their parents, and to a large extent the enlighten, seem afraid to confront that system for what it is. I wanted to speak to the changes natural event here at Ridgemont, that the focus of the school is being shifted from educating for character to difficult to improve the efficiency with which Ridgemont can heard students into the Ivy League. It seemed to me that my entire cardinal years here had led to the final understanding that a bent of what we have been told to strive for amounts to little more than bowing down earlier Mammon. But, upon reflection, I realized that I would not be doing justice to the school and the class I love if I spent my time up here attacking the parents and the school in that manner. I really owe the school and my peers a lot more than that. If it were not for my Ridgemont education, I belike would never have seen the system for what it is. Ridgemont taught me to despise that system by cover me a better way to do things by showing me that education, success, and merriment do not have to come at the expense of differents, that I could go further if I learned to help, and to be helped, by those just about me, rather than compete against them. Ridgemonts emphasis on process versus product pass on stay with me for the rest of my life. So when I sat down and act to pull together what it was about Ridgemont that made it an interesting and wonderful prepare to attend school, I remembered that my friend Larry had once pointed out to me the distinction mingled with the two types of people that you can associate with. Th ere are those that oversee about your soul, and those that dont. I think that the Ridgemont education, for many in my class, was one that cared for our souls, and this is what distinguishes it from other schools, and this is why it is so unlike the real world in here.