Half a lifetime ago, I was invited to deliver the graduation
address at Lloyd C. Bird High School.
As I recall, the event took place in broad daylight, on the
football field, and it was absurdly hot and humid.
Moreover, I found my words coming back at me from stadium loudspeakers –
on about a one-second delay – which was rather distracting.
I’m not sure I made a good deal of sense.
At any rate, I’ve never been asked to deliver another
graduation speech, which is probably just as well.
When I spoke at Bird, I was the sort of person who might be
invited to speak at a graduation – a young lawyer and politician who could be
counted on to say nothing disturbing.
These days, I’m an increasingly curmudgeonly, sixty-something opinion
writer who would be apt to say something uncomfortable if offered the
opportunity. Perhaps something along
these lines:
First, if you’re planning to go to college next year, postpone
those plans.
Almost any college will reserve your place while you take a
“gap year”. Indeed, the better the
school, the more likely that it will recognize that a year, or even two, will
make you a more mature, serious scholar when you eventually matriculate.
So take a year off.
Get an apartment with a friend, get a real job, and learn what
it’s like to work for a living.
Get a passport, grab a rucksack, and bum your way around the
world. Try to avoid actual war-zones, or
places where you’ll be hated just for being American. (That will limit your options.) Visit your planet.
Spend a year doing something of service to humanity. Try to avoid “mission work”. You’re too young to know anything of
intellectual – much less, spiritual – value to people in need. But you’re the perfect age to do hard,
thankless work.
If you really want some perspective, get a job in a nursing
home or assisted living facility.
Confront your mortality.
Or, if you’re really ready to grow up, join the military. Spend two years serving your country and
getting to know Americans who can’t afford to go to college without taking that
route.
Second, while you’re taking that “gap year”, reconsider your
college plans. Almost no one your age has
a clue about choosing a college.
Mostly, kids choose a school because some of their friends are
going there.
Or because a parent, close relative, or favorite teacher went
there.
Or
because of some vaguely-perceived idea of its “reputation” – which probably has
more to do with its graduate programs or the prowess of its athletic teams than
the quality of its undergraduate education.
Here’s
some news:
Within
a year, few of your high school friends will be nearly as close as they are now. Their college preferences will turn out to be
irrelevant.
While
your parents’, relatives’, and teachers’ affection for their respective alma maters is doubtless passionate, you
mustn’t confuse their decades-old memories with current reality. Colleges change.
For
example, I have three degrees from UVA, and I love the place. But I’ve counseled decades of my own students
to go elsewhere for their undergraduate study.
The
best education available in this country is at small liberal arts colleges
you’ve probably never heard of - schools where undergraduate courses are taught
by professors – not underpaid adjuncts.
Schools with, at most, Division III athletic teams.
Third,
when you eventually go to college, don’t choose your courses in order to
prepare for a career.
Yes,
in today’s economy, it’s a good idea to have a college degree when you start applying
for jobs. But, within five years of
graduation, most young people end up working in careers that have nothing to do
with their college majors.
So
study things which will teach you to think, logically and critically. Study things which will stimulate your
imaginative side.
Most
important, study things that will last. Ten years from now, today’s fashionable major
will end up being about as serviceable as today’s cellphone.
Keep
this in mind. You’ve just graduated from
a public school system which is increasingly devoted – not to education – but to
preparing students for standardized tests.
If
you’d graduated twenty years ago, there’s a chance you’d know how to
think. In the era of SOLs, there’s
almost no chance of that.
It’s
not your fault, but your parents – and the politicians they have helped to
elect – have assured that you belong to the most ignorant generation in this
country’s history.
College
represents your best chance to correct that.
So
study History, Philosophy, Literature and the Classics. These enduring subjects will teach you to
think.
Become
fluent in a second language. Your
country isn’t doing too well, these days.
It’s good to have options.
And
learn Accounting. The big corporations –
aided by your government – are shipping jobs overseas, or giving them to
robots. Chances are, if you want to get
ahead, you’ll end up working for yourself.
It
would be good if you could balance your books.
Finally,
understand that this could all be bad advice.
You’ve spent the past eighteen years listening to adults who don’t know
what they’re talking about. There’s no
reason to believe that I’ll turn out to be different.
Perhaps that’s the best reason to devote the next few years to learning to think for
yourself.
