Good Afternoon Seniors. I remember not too long ago when I was a high school senior as well. I would get up at about six, shower and be on my way to those early morning classes. It’s amazing how I was never late to class and I never complained about getting up for my 7:30 class in high school, but now that I’m in college, even my 9:30 class seems very early. College is much different than high school in many ways. You all are the head of your school now because you are all seniors. You all are going to go out after this year and do great things in the world. It’s time for you all to lead the way. After you all graduate from college, some of you may be doctors, lawyers, and dentists, and maybe even some of you will be career students. I know that is a long time ahead of you to be thinking that far in advance, but it’s time to start preparing yourselves for the future. There are some things you should know before you engage in the adventures of college. Some of these things you may think you already know, and some of these things may even scare you. Whether or not you agree with what I am going to say, I do ask that you keep an open mind and explore the possibilities of truth in what I say.
The valedictorian of my class had said something very important to the graduating class that has stuck with me ever since. “College is your time to shine, go out and become a star!” (Sandvall). Barkley, the valedictorian, has had a tremendous influence in my life not only from that speech but just being a part of my life. She is a very intelligent and fun person to be around and she has always encouraged me to do well in school and I know has made me a much better person from when she first met me. I will never forget that quote and I will always work hard to make that quote true. I encourage all of you to go out and become stars as well, because we are the future leaders of the world.
We already know that all of you are going to become leaders. But why do you want to go to college? Is it for the common reason, “To get a high paying job?” That is not a bad reason at all. However, if that is the case, why not just enroll in a trade school and get a degree in half the time making just about the same amount of money? Wouldn’t that make more sense? So if you’re not going to college just to get a high paying job, then what else is college going to offer you that would make you so eager to attend? Most of you will go off to college and do very well, and I really hope that all of you do.
In a magazine article I was reading the other day, the author gave some very useful information about the future in the business world. He talked about the difficulties and changes that the business world will overcome in the near future and he very heavily stressed the importance of a college education. I distinctly remember this quote of his, “Most of these high paying jobs will be reserved for those with degrees” (Wharton 1). It is important that all of you strive to get a good college education so that you too can compete in the business world. You will need to work very hard in college to be able to do so. So please listen to my speech today so that you will be able to understand more about what it will take to be successful in college.
First, let me start by talking about knowledge and what it is and who should have it. You may be wondering, as I once did, why we should be discussing knowledge. The topic of knowledge is not as general as I once thought. Knowledge involves a lot of things and they are all just as important as the next.
What is knowledge? Knowledge means something different to every one of you. There is no wrong definition of knowledge but simply incomplete definitions. We are all unique and all posses different skills and traits that make us who we are. I believe before anyone can start to form their definition of knowledge, they should hear others’ definitions so that they have more information to base their own on. Jeff Adam, my father, is a very successful businessman. He graduated at the top of his class and became an entrepreneur by starting his own very successful business. After interviewing my dad about his thoughts about knowledge, I came to discover that he had never really been asked that question either. After thinking for a while, he told me not what I wanted to hear about knowledge, but instead useful information about college. He said, “I learned three important things in college – to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, and to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes” (Interview Adam). Let me vouch for him as well, that is absolutely true.
In my definition, knowledge is what makes up a person. It includes a person’s intelligence as well as how they use their intelligence. It is a person’s ability to make educated decisions based on what information they have. I believe that knowledge is the only thing that cannot be taken from you. Knowledge is continuously spreading around the world. It is never complete because each life event and experience adds to your knowledge. I was fortunate enough to have two parents and many teachers in my life that have affected my view on knowledge quite heavily. It wasn’t until my freshman year of college that I was ever asked to question what knowledge really is, and I am very thankful that I had been given that question because it has made me look deeper into the word and what it truly means. I encourage all of you to do the same.
Who should have knowledge? You may be wondering why I am asking this question but in the world today there are still many people who are functionally illiterate. Should they be denied the opportunity to learn because they live in a poor area or because their parents can’t afford their school expenses? You all were fortunate enough to come to this high school and get a good education, but there are many out there who can’t even write their name on a piece of paper. They can’t read the menu at a restaurant more or less read a book. So what can these people even do? They basically go through life doing what others tell them to do and think what others tell them to think. This is no way to live a happy life.
Fortunately you all are blessed with a decent education and will likely continue that education at college. Let me warn you though, there are many things that you need to know that they never told you in high school. I will do my best to inform you as well as describe to you the changes you will hopefully encounter throughout your college life. Hopefully these tips will help you all be more successful in college and ultimately your career.
First of all, you must learn to love reading. The easiest way to ace your classes is simply by reading your book. Showing up to class every now and then helps but more importantly is reading your book and studying the notes. I hated reading books in high school. The books in high school were usually long and about old authors that wrote about topics of no interest to me. I rarely ever actually read the books that were assigned because quite frankly, they just had too many uninteresting words on a page. Remember back in elementary, you had worksheets and rarely had to open a book. You could even get through middle school and high school without reading a single book. There are so many online resources that can summarize a book so that your teacher could never even tell the difference. I never had to read and I still made good grades….until I got to college. College is not a joke and not at all as easy to get through as high school was for me. They take freshman like me and assign two or three books to read by the end of semester just so they can wash out of a few of us. The tests over the books cannot be passed by summaries alone either, which inevitably forced me to actually read the books. This has taught me a valuable lesson though. Books actually increase your intelligence and they really aren’t even that boring if you can get into them. With all the reading I had to do this semester in college, I found a sanctuary spot that I do all my reading. It is the library. If you try to sit in your dorm or apartment and read there are just too many distractions. There’s just something about the silent environment with books all around you that just makes reading a book much easier and enjoyable. The main point is basically this, it is very important for you and your grade to read the books that are assigned to you. The same tricks we used to pull in high school, don’t work here, I’ve tried. So do yourself a favor and read the books on time and thoroughly. Don’t wait until the week before the essay to try and read a 300 page novel on economics, believe me, it’s can’t be done. Most importantly, do not resort to cheating.
I have a lot to say about cheating because I feel very strongly against it. Believe it or not, I used to be a slacker in high school. I actually thought of high school as a big social event that we took part in daily, not so much a learning institute. I really didn’t do that much homework, but I still managed to make good grades. High schools require attendance, so there was never a problem of me not going to classes. Everyone knew me and I was very friendly to all who knew me. High school was very easy to me, partly because I was in fact a cheater. I didn’t cheat on every test or cheat on every piece of homework, but any cheating at all is cheating. Occasionally I would forget about an assignment that was due, and I would copy it right before class and turn it in as my own work. There were even times during a test that I had not studied for that I would lean over and look at my neighbor’s paper. Closer to the end of my senior year I had even developed clever schemes to pass papers during a test. I probably spent more time planning how we could cheat for a test than actually studying for the test. I can’t stress enough to you all though how negatively that has affected my life.
Cheating is the wrong approach to anything. I didn’t know this at the time I was doing it, but cheating actually cheats you in more ways than one. Not only do you cheat the person you copied from because they did all the work and you simply stole the answers. You also cheat yourself because instead of knowing the information that your test scores show you do, you in fact know little to nothing about what the topic was about.
Another thing I must stress to you is that all courses build on each other. If you take an English course your freshman year, and take another your sophomore year, you can expect the information you learned in the freshman course will be in the sophomore course. So ultimately if you start cheating your freshman year, you are almost committed to cheating your sophomore year in order to sustain the average you want. Cheating is a very hard habit to break and I know it is from firsthand experience. I am not telling you all this so you can go out and develop clever schemes to cheat on all your tests, I am telling you this because if you cheated your way through high school as I did, you need to stop and think about if that is what you want to do in college. Unlike high school, colleges generally have a zero tolerance rule for cheating. If you get caught cheating on an exam in your class, you will most likely be dropped from the class and possibly suspended from the school. In high school of the few times I was caught cheating, I simply received a zero for the grade which really didn’t matter because we had numerous tests a semester anyway, it didn’t affect my grade much. In college, there are usually only three exams per semester. If you fail an exam, it is recommended that you consider dropping the course. Just be smart and don’t cheat. Study your material and prepare way in advance for your exams. Cheating is never the right answer, so be smart and study.
I know you don’t want me to talk about cheating any more so let’s move on then. Unfortunately for you all, there is a new Texas legislation that prevents you all from dropping a certain amount of courses. “The 80th Texas Legislature in the 2007 Legislative session passed SB1231 that limits the number of classes students can drop throughout their entire undergraduate career to six” (Accd 1). You will also be required to meet with your counselor before dropping any course. This is very important because it means that you must choose your courses wisely. After your six classes are used up, you can only receive passing or failing grades for the course, so choose wisely your courses.
I hope you all will take what I have told you today and use it to better yourselves when it is your turn to go to college. I know all of you are bright students and you will be very successful in life if you work hard for what you want and never give up. There may be times in college when you just want to give up and quit, but I encourage all of you to just stop, take a break, and keep trying. I would like to see all of you graduate with bachelor’s degrees in four years. I would like to then see all of you working the job of your dreams and making good money at the same time. These are simple goals you may achieve by simply putting forth the work and effort it takes. I hope all of you enjoyed my speech today. I would like to wish everyone good luck in college. I believe in each and every one of you all. God Bless.