On several recent occasions, I’ve noticed how my American students have redefined the word “kid”. It’s now a neutral way of referring to a man of college age, as in, “that kid in the yellow shirt” or “the kid who’s studying biology”.
It’s long been common for older people to refer to their own offspring as kids for years after they’ve grown up. But for students to call each other kids is something new.
“We’re not grown up,” one member of the group explained to me matter-of-factly, and listed some of the reasons. Lots of students still live with their parents, have not fully adopted the ways of adults, and have far to go before achieving financial independence or becoming settled in their future careers.
College graduation is one of life’s biggest milestones
Although rites of passage have generally disappeared from Western society, there are three big exceptions: marriage, military service and college graduation. It’s no coincidence that these are the biggest milestones for people in their 20s. They confer on you, basically, the right to create life (if you choose), the right to end life (if necessary), and the right to live your own life. Each of these rights carries a heavy burden of responsibility.
Graduation or commencement?
In the 1967 film The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman plays a young man who flies home to his parents after finishing his studies at a distant university. He spends the summer in an idle state of depression, trying to figure out, or more likely avoid the question of, what should come next. He must first resolve the larger issue of whether he’s ready to surrender the capriciousness of youth in order to become as dull, predictable and vaguely unhappy as the adults around him.
“Graduation” means “taking a step”; it’s a transition from one stage of life to another. The grades and degree that are part of this process come from the same Latin word, meaning “rank” or “level”.
Like it or not, you’re ready for real life
Universities have a more elegant way of looking at this. They refer to graduation as “commencement”, which means “beginning”. This sounds counterintuitive, given that it’s the end of a program that’s usually four years long. But it communicates the idea that everything prior to that moment was preparation. Real life is about to begin and, like it or not, you’re officially ready for it.
Dustin Hoffman was given some well-meaning advice by his parents’ friends (“plastics” as the industry to enter was the shortest, and most famous, line). At some of the larger and better-funded US universities, the advice comes from well-known, successful guest speakers. Here’s what they told graduating classes this month.
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright at Tufts University, Massachusetts:
“In future years, you will recall this ceremony, and you will understand that today … was the day you first began to forget everything you learned in college and graduate school. But as the names of dead European kings and the body parts of dissected animals begin to fade, the true value of your days on the hill in Boston … will become more and more apparent. … From this day forward, you will have to rely not on grades or guidance from professors to tell you how you are doing and where you stand. You will have to rely instead on an inner compass. Whether that compass is true will determine whether you become a drifter, who is blown about by every breeze, or a doer — an active citizen determined to chart your own course, question your assumptions and, when necessary, sail unafraid against strong winds.”
News anchor Katie Couric at the University of Wisconsin:
“According to one projection, millennials will average 15–20 jobs before they retire, and move positions an average of every 3–4 years. Today’s career ladder looks more like an Escher drawing. Which one do I choose? How do I start? Where will it lead me? … A fulfilling professional life can be found at the intersection of what you love and what you’re good at, and when you think you’ve discovered it, go at it full-throttle. … But don’t wait forever to find your bliss, or you may find yourself at 30 living in your parents’ basement, eating microwave popcorn and binge-watching reruns.”
Actor Robert de Niro to students of the performing arts at New York University:
“When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump common sense. You aren’t just following dreams; you’re reaching for your destiny. … On this day of triumphantly graduating, a new door is opening for you: a door to a lifetime of rejection. It’s inevitable. It’s what graduates call the real world. You’ll experience it auditioning for a part or a place in a company. It’ll happen to you when you’re looking for backers for a project. … Rejection might sting, but my feeling is that often it has very little to do with you. When you’re auditioning or pitching, the director or producer or investor may just have something or someone different in mind. That’s just how it is.”
General Philip M. Breedlove, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, at the Georgia Institute of Technology:
“Your ability to lead and motivate people will underwrite your success, as your technical skills and knowledge will be implied in what you do. Understanding technology and engineering will make you valuable, but it will be your aptitude for understanding your people and motivating them that will make you invaluable. Technology and engineering provide an organization with capacity, but its people provide it with capability: a seemingly simple, yet often misunderstood concept and one that must be grasped fully, especially in the complex world that you will be navigating.”
Comedian Stephen Colbert at Wake Forest University in North Carolina:
“It is my responsibility as a commencement speaker to prepare you for what awaits you in the future. Here it is: No one has any idea what is going to happen — not even Elon Musk. … But this uncertainty is not new to your generation. The future is always uncertain. … Get ready for my generation to tell you everything that can’t be done, like ending racial tension or getting money out of politics or lowering the world’s carbon emissions. And we should know they can’t be done; after all, we’re the ones who didn’t do them! Your job, pro humanitate, is to prove us wrong.”
