To the Graduates

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.