Are you ready to switch off your screens and ponder or discuss another writing/conversation prompt during dinner tonight? You want to know about my thoughts on it? Here’s my take:
I have had four commencements in my life, if you will. The first one was after the traditional 13 years from my German grammar school at age 18. It was a celebration that was held in the music room of our school for all 66 of our class. There were only we graduates, some teachers, and our principal. No parents. No gowns. A few of us – me included – performed some music to make the act of getting our graduation certificates more festive. I’m pretty sure that our principal held a short speech. Either it was not remarkable enough or I was so elated to have achieved my goal – the speech didn’t stick. Was it a bad speech, therefore?
The second commencement was from the University of Stuttgart, Germany. I started in a group of about 60 students in literary sciences and about the same size of group in linguistics. Of these two groups only two of us graduated the same winter semester in the former subject, only me in the latter subject. The long and short of it was that there was no official commencement celebration. No gowns. Not even a handshake from a deacon. The certificate was sent in the mail.
The third and fourth commencements, if you would call them that, were the going-away celebrations that were held for me at former jobs. The first was even only a part-time job that I held for seven years as a sales associate at a furniture store – during my life at university and the year after when I was frantically searching for a permanent job. The second was from my last job in Germany as the editor-in-chief of a trade magazine. I remember both speeches delivered as if it was yesterday. There was so much laughter, there were tears. There were gifts, which I hadn’t expected at all.
Why do I remember the second commencement, at all? Because it lacked everything. I entered my final exam. I came out with flying colors. My professor congratulated me with a hand-shake. After that, I passed by an empty cafeteria downstairs (it was a Friday afternoon) where I bumped into one fellow student whom I was able to tell the great news that I had just graduated. Then I went for a department store with a fantastic culinary section and shopped out my heart to cook my own graduation dinner at home (I preferred that to going out).
It was the loneliest commencement anybody could get, I guess. No official recognition other than a certificate in the mail, three months later. Which makes me come to commencement speeches.
I think there are good speeches that stick or don’t. And there are bad speeches that also stick or don’t for all the right (or wrong) reasons. The worst commencement speech is that not delivered.
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