Has it ever occurred to you that Graduation day is a bit like looking into a kaleidoscope? It’s full of pictures jumbled together all of which together make up your life. There are the images of your growing years with your family and friends. Then there are the pictures of your student activities, the classmates you met and, finally, the wonderful excitement of today your graduation day. The pictures of your future are very vague because, of course, none of us knows what the future holds.
Today we have the good feel factor that comes from knowing that we have done our best. We have achieved and qualified. We didn’t do it alone of course. All along the way we had the wonderful support of our families and the encouragement and help of our tutors. It’s likely that some of us took this for granted as only our due. Today, though, as mature and newly qualified adults, we recognise that without that back-up we could not have succeeded. So today I know my fellow students would like to join me in saying how much we appreciate all those who have helped make this day possible.
Included in that are our fellow students. They pored over the textbooks with us, drank innumerable cups of coffee with us and exchanged views with us. That is probably what has given us the most important education of all. After all when we enter the working world we will be working with all sorts of people from varying backgrounds and our experience here will tell us this is a good thing, that the world is full of wonderful people with different ideas and talents.
From now on we will be taking our talents and beliefs with us wherever we go .If we have learned anything it is that we have to be adaptable. ready to take chances and go different routes. The day of a job for life is almost gone. These days we have to be ready to update our knowledge, add to our skills and be ready to cope with change.
That’s the challenge before us and it is one that we will all meet in our different ways. Some of us will want to stay at home, others to travel the four corners of the earth. Some will like to work alone while others will want to work in a partnership. Whatever we do our wherever we go we won’t forget today. Hopefully in years to come we will meet up with our friends again at a college re-union. That is, of course something we have to organise so I am sure you will understand that we will have to go out on the town tonight to make our plans.
Finally, I would like to wish my fellow graduates, fellow graduates now that has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? I would like to wish them health and happiness in the future and the satisfaction of knowing that whatever they do they will do it well. After all they are graduates of (Name of college) and that is just another name for the college of excellence.