The Tassel was Worth the Hassle! (& Happy Birthday to me!)

Last Thursday marked my long-awaited graduation ceremony which ended up coinciding with my birthday. The one thing I realised about graduation is that graduation is like looking into a kaleidoscope, it’s all full of pictures that are jumbled together, and it is these pictures that make up the memories of my life. These are the images of my growing years with my family and friends, then there are the pictures of my time as a student and the student activities I undertook, the classmates you met and, lastly the wonderful excitement of the graduation day itself. The pictures of the future are very vague because, of course, none of us, knows what the future will hold.

COVID-19 has not made life easy for any of us, but we all powered through the best we could do, whist we celebrate, we remember those who has passed as a result of COVID, and it is in there memory that we raise a glass and do all that we can to ensure that this pandemic cannot cost any more lives, to them I say, we will not forget.

On graduation, we have the good feel factor that comes from knowing that we have done our best. We have achieved and qualified. We didn’t do it alone of course. All along the way we had the wonderful support of our families and the encouragement and help of our tutors. It’s likely that some of us took this for granted as only our due. Today, though, as mature, and newly qualified adults, we recognise that without that back-up we could not have succeeded. So today I know my fellow students would like to join me in saying how much we appreciate all those who have helped make this day possible.

Included in that are our fellow students. They pored over the textbooks with us, drank innumerable cups of coffee with us and exchanged views with us. That is probably what has given us the most important education of all. After all, when we enter the working world we will be working with all sorts of people from varying backgrounds and our experience here will tell us this is a good thing, that the world is full of wonderful people with different ideas and talents.

“Don’t just get involved. Fight for a seat at the table. better yet, fight for the seat at the head of the table.”

Barack Obama at Barnard College 2012

From now on we will be taking our talents and beliefs with us wherever we go. If we have learned anything it is that we must be adaptable. ready to take chances and go different routes. The day of a job for life is almost gone. These days we must be ready to update our knowledge, add to our skills and be ready to cope with change.

That’s the challenge before us and it is one that we will all meet in our different ways. Some of us will want to stay at home, others to travel the four corners of the earth. Some would like to work alone while others will want to work in a partnership. Whatever we do or wherever we go we won’t forget today. Hopefully in years to come we will meet up with our friends again at a re-union and share stories of our travels, share news of new beginnings, and share sorrow at shared losses. That is, of course something we endure now as we begin to navigate all that life has to offer.

Finally, I would like to wish my fellow graduates, fellow graduates now that has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? I would like to wish them health and happiness in the future and the satisfaction of knowing that whatever they do they will do it well. After all they are graduates of Buckinghamshire New University and that is just another name for excellence.

Today I’m reminded of a poem, I once heard and would like to share, unfortunately I cannot remember whom wrote it, if you know where this poem came from, please do let me know.

Today we are throwing our caps in the air

Getting ready to go different ways

To tackle the world head on my friends

And to start on the very first phase

Of adult life with all it implies

No more running home to mum

But making her proud of the lives we lead

And showing our dads we’re not dumb.

So today as we sit in this great big hall

We’d like to give our thanks to you all

For being there when we needed you

Now it’s our turn to show what we do

I don’t know how or why or when

But goodbye my friends until we meet again

Thank you to everyone for their support!