Graduation

The speaker this year was considerably better than last year's.

I do not think that is solely because she said things I agree with, but it might be.

I do think she made three points as a part of her speech that some of our graduates needed to hear:

1. Your diploma does not entitle you to a top job, it does not entitle you to a great salary or a plush life. It is up to you to make that happen, if you want it. (And even then you might not get what you expected - but you can make the best of what you get). What the diploma does represent is the fact that you managed to complete something - to take on a goal and achieve it. And it also represents opportunity. She pointed out that by having finished college, they have more opportunity now than many people in this world. (She didn't come right out and say, "....and because you live in the U.S." but I think that was kind of implied).

I remember thinking as she started on that point: "Oh ho, she's taking on the entitlement mentality! Good for her!"

2. Even when you're scared, sometimes you have to do the things you agreed to do. She spoke of taking her first position as a college professor - moving far from the home she had known, the place where she had lived all her life - in fact, the place where her ENTIRE family was and had been for generations. And she admitted that she was terrified. But she knew it needed to be done. And she said, "I didn't know what else to do [to deal with being terrified] other than teaching and doing research...so I taught and did research." In other words: if something scares you, make an effort to do it anyway.

That point TOTALLY resonated with me because I remember a time, not very many years ago, on a late July afternoon, sitting in a crummy "Kettle" franchise with my parents, sobbing because I was scared - I was scared that I wouldn't be able to manage teaching three classes on my own, scared that I would never fit in, scared that I'd never get a paper published and would wind up experiencing one of the worst fates an academic can: not getting my contract renewed.

But there was nothing to be done for it - I had signed the paperwork, I had rented an apartment and moved all my stuff here. It was the natural progression of things, moving out of the family house and taking on my own life (and I had delayed it long enough by living with my folks while in grad school).

So, the only thing for me to do was to go home, open up the textbooks I had chosen to use with my classes, and start preparing lectures and discussion material. That first year was a LOT of hard work...I worked every moment I wasn't in class during the day, worked several hours every night at home, worked Saturdays. But I made it.

Oh, there were difficult points. There was the time my personal laptop broke (and the office computer I had at first was horrible; it wouldn't even connect to the Internet so I couldn't do any kind of grade-posting or any kind of research involving searching for articles or background information for teaching). There were the two Big Tough Conservation Guys who by God didn't think a WOMAN had anything she could teach them, so they conspired to make my life hell in the class they took from me the first semester. There was the feeling that I never had enough sleep, that I was maybe losing who I was, the fear that I'd be 60 years old and still struggling to get all the work done.

But I succeeded. I lived through it. Despite being scared, despite being a little harassed some of the time, despite being tired and sometimes feeling put-upon. It is a lot easier now. That doesn't mean there are not still times when I am apprehensive about things. But with every hard thing you try - everything that scares you at first but that you manage to do - it gets easier in the future.

I will admit as she was talking about her experience, I looked back over my own and thought, "Golly day, she's right. If you had told me ten years ago that I'd be where I am right now - with tenure and everything - I'd never have believed I'd be able to do it."

(It puts me in mind of an old saying involving dealing with big tasks: "Inch by inch, it's a cinch; yard by yard, it's hard." Meaning that if you look at the whole of a task all at once, you just want to lie down and die, but if you break it down into mini-goals, it begins to appear possible.)

3. She reminded the students that work isn't always "fun." That there are things you will have to do as part of your career you don't love doing, but that are important. She observed that when she was a professor, she HATED grading (lots of nodding from us in the front rows) but she loved watching students grow and achieve and she loved seeing them successfully graduate and go on to careers. But in order for all of that to happen - she had to grade. Likewise, she said she didn't love sitting down to write on her books - in fact, she said, she sometimes hated it - but she loved being able to look over the books after they were done and published and say "I did that!"

The point being - nothing worth doing is easy, nor is it fun all the time. And fun isn't even the POINT in some cases - it's the satisfaction of doing something worthwhile, which is a good feeling in itself but which is worlds away from mere "fun."

And yet - even though she talked about doing things that scared you and putting up with un-fun tasks, there was still this sense from her that she loved everything she did, that she had a passion, that it was important to her. Not because it earned the big paycheck, not because it made her famous (I had never heard of her before she spoke today) but because she had aspects of her work that helped other people and made their lives better. The concept of doing something because it is worthwhile, apart from what it "gets" you materially was what she was talking about.