Graduation Day

It seems that the older we get the faster time goes by. A year seemed forever when I was little but now four years seems like yesterday! This past weekend I graduated from Clark University alongside about 600 other graduates. Although it was a long day, the Clark administration made it quite nice.

Shirley Brice Heath

The day started off with the Convocation ceremony for those undergraduates being recognized. I was recognized as being a member of the Fiat Lux Honor Society. At this ceremony, one of the most memorable speakers was Shirley Brice Heath. In her speech, Professor Heath spoke about the difference between the word  LOVE and CARE. As she explained, the word love is grossly over used. On a daily basis we catch ourselves saying "I LOVE chocolate!" "I LOVE those shoes!" "I LOVE you!" By tossing this word around so much we've lost its true meaning. According to Professor Heath, what we really should be saying is CARE. Do you really CARE about chocolate? Probably not. Do you really CARE about those shoes? Not in the least. Do you really CARE about that person? Yes. When we really care about something or someone love will naturally follow. Professor Heath's message was a simple yet powerful one: the next time we go to say we LOVE something or someone stop and think, do we just like it a lot or do we really CARE about it?

Alan Khazei

Following Convocation was the actual Commencement Ceremony. Although the ceremony was long, the key note speaker Alan Khazei truly captured our attention. In his speech he spoke about a Chinese proverb that addresses blessings in disguise. The question that is continually asked within this proverb is "how do you know it's such a bad thing?" The heart of the proverb addresses situations that seem hopeless and bad. When things seem to be going poorly and it seems that the situation is terrible, how do we really know it is such a bad thing? Perhaps it is not a bad thing at all. Perhaps we are exactly where we're suppose to be and in fact this bad event is actually a door to something better that on our own we would never have discovered. Although we've always heard the saying "There's a reason for everything," sometimes these reasons don't seem good enough. However the saying "how do you know it is such a bad thing," seems to be much more apt. While things may seem bad at the time, they always get better. Without these bad things, there can be no good. It is important to not give up hope and to stay on the positive side of things, because as the Chinese proverb says, how do we know that what we're going through really is a bad thing?

Now that I've graduated it's hard to believe. I poured my heart and soul into four years of college, holding down two jobs, founding and co-chairing Relay For Life for 3 out of the 4 years, a member of an active honor society and coming out a Cum Laude. After all of that it's crazy to believe that I'm done. But with the knowledge and experiences that I've gained alongside these simple but powerful message Professor Heath and Khazei bestowed upon our graduating class I'm ready for the next big thing--whatever that may be!