Do not be afraid of what will be—instead, Owls, fly towards it.
I gave a graduation speech. Single handedly the greatest moment of my life. Here it is.
Thank you Dean Boardman, faculty and staff, guests, and fellow graduates.
I remember being so excited to leave my little town in Irvington, New Jersey to come take on the Philly streets. Bright eyed and bushy tailed freshman Naomi made sure she arrived at White Hall early! My family helped me unload my belongings and set up my room. When they left, I let out a victorious “YES!”
We probably all shared a similar feeling. We felt free. We felt like we could do what we wanted. We looked forward to this wonderful new experience.
But, that same night I moved in I cried the entire evening. I was crying because I was scared. I was crying because I had to sleep in the is odd, uncomfortable twin bed. I was crying because of uncertainty.
I realized what we all realized that day. We were frightened. And suddenly our taste of freedom didn’t taste so good.
And for us those fears would continue. What will we do? Who will we become? What will the future hold? And that fear of the future is probably one of the biggest.
For me, that future woke me right up out of my twin bed for my 8 am class and said Good Morning. Where it really hit me was my first career fair and we have all been there and suddenly the questions continued. All boiling down to, “Are we good enough?”
Fortunately, I like many of us could call on a support system to help ease the fears of college. In my case it was my mother who would always say, “You have to be uncomfortable to be comfortable.” We have heard variations of this from our professors, our friends, our family who helped us to realize that its simply okay to not be okay. It’s a hard lesson. But it’s one all of us had to learn.
I carried a tremendous load of pressure in my time here making sure the legacy I leave behind would make my family and friends proud. We have all done the same. We have broken out of our shells. And we have taken risks.
Sometimes we won, several times we failed.
But we are in the Klein College of Media and Communication. We have media at our disposal to make our dreams our reality. For me, I knew what I had to do because we all do. . We have to communicate. I picked up a camera and started talking to the internet. I find that social media platforms allow people to express themselves in ways that we can’t do out in the open. And We all know this. We are constantly recording our journey. We edit. And we upload our stories for the world to see.
Before coming to Temple I barely saw anyone like me represented on the internet making college vlogs on this campus. I fell in love with Temple but, I had doubts that there was going to be a community I could fit into. But we need to fill a void. We need to showcase our unique experiences. My unique experience is as an African American woman on this campus but we have so many more stories to tell. The story of the recent arrived immigrant. The story of the Spanish speaking student. The story of the LGBTQ student.
And many more stories of those we couldn’t have heard. But graduates, these stories and our stories will be told.
I was forced, in a good way, to stop being scared and start believing in myself. To represent what I believed in. I was told what we all were all told and what we all have all come to believe: We can succeed.
And we should celebrate taking risks toward those successes. We should celebrate the voices that aren’t heard and change that for them and for us. It’s how we evolve. And I know we are all here to celebrate our success but we should also celebrate failure. Celebrate our loses so we are ALL be ready to win together.
I’m won’t stand here and pretend I know more than you or did anything more significant in my years here than anyone in this room because I realize that scared girl in that twin bed only stopped crying when she saw other people who saw her.
I know although I, alone cannot eliminate your fear of the future I’m want to make sure you fear the right things. Do not be afraid of what will be—instead, Owls, fly toward it.
Congratulations Graduates of 2019.
