Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304811304577366332400453796.html

by tuxguy • 13 years ago

151 71 13 years ago

online.wsj.com

Be sure to click on the embedded video. The segment by Conan O'Brien is particularly insightful.

neovive• 13 years ago

Interesting read. Although I don't agree with all the points, it does shed light on the realities faced by recent college graduates.

Looking back on my own experience a decade after my graduation, point one is definitely true. The relationships you build in college are very important and I wish someone told me this when I was in college. I have lost touch with most of my fraternity friends and other colleagues which was not wise. However, I did meet my wife in college which was a great success (point four)! She remained in contact with all her friends and has benefited greatly from it.

As a parent, I can relate to point five. There is definitely constant pressure placed on you by peers to push your children into all sorts of activities (this also ties in to point seven). Just be cognizant of the volume of activities you place you child into -- children do experience burn-out, but it manifests itself in different ways (such as behavior in the classroom). There is nothing wrong with just playing in the park or pick-up games -- not everything has to be structured.

AznHisoka• 13 years ago

When I graduated, it felt like the hardest part of my life was going to be over, and I was going to reap the rewards of my hard work in school. So no.. I don't believe in commencement speeches.

ngokevin• 13 years ago

Did a commencement speaker tell you it would be smooth sailings? I imagine the cookie cutter speech would involve something like "it's going to get tough, keep your head up".

127001brewer• 13 years ago

Another point would be to save. When you're young, it's easy to spend and not save. However, it's important to get into a disciplined habit of saving - don't depend on someone else to force you to save.

Also, while it's financially advantageous to have a two-income family, once you have kids priorities might change. The better choice may be to have a parent at home with the kid(s) instead of utilizing day-care.

You're mileage may vary.

hnriot• 13 years ago

this is very bad advice. saving money with a near nil interest rate is a huge waste of money. spend money on travel, do things with the money you have, life live. It is through expanding our horizons that opportunities present themselves which lead to a far more fulfilling live.

Simply hoarding cash for the rainy day scenario seems like such an awful way to live life. Sure, don't over spend, don't waste, and don't frivolously throw money away, but money is a means to doing things.

R_Edward• 13 years ago

True, money is a means to doing things. Things like paying for an unexpected extended hospitalization. Or a new refrigerator when the old one dies. Or a new roof when a tornado plays peekaboo with your attic. Or a new vehicle when someone slams into your old one. Or for that matter, putting food on the table when you're 79 years old and really don't want to do the whole 9-to-5 thing anymore.

While it's true that you can pay for most of those things with a credit card and make monthly payments, may I be so presumptuous as to point out that if you made those monthly payments before you incurred the charges--i.e., put the money into a savings account, even one earning only a quarter of a percent in interest--then when you pay the bill, you pay only 100% of the charges. If you wait until after you incur the charges, and make payments on your credit card, you're going to pay 120% or more of the charges.

Saving money with a near-nil interest rate may be a huge waste of money, but not saving it, and having to pay finance charges when high-ticket items need to be paid for is an even huger waste.

volkadav• 13 years ago

"Saving" can mean much more than a simple savings account (which are still useful even if rates are negligible -- having a few months' worth of living expenses in savings against emergencies is a hugely calming thing), e.g. saving in tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Starting that when you're young increases the chances that you'll have a comfortable retirement, and you can more easily tolerate swings in the markets. (401k/IRA et al. in the US, every industrialized country that I know of has something like this though.)

Not that I entirely disagree with you. Dying a rich miser who never enjoyed life is a crappy way to go, just as crappy as being old and broke. As with all things, there's a middle path that probably maximizes both short and long term happiness. :)

atwebb• 13 years ago

I cannot disagree more emphatically.

It's not a hoarding of cash. It's living on a proper financial diet and it is crucial that you learn it early and abide by it because, when the money does start coming in, you don't get fat and slow, you stay lean and strong.

Also, it isn't all about interest rates. It's about opportunity. Having 100k and being able to borrow 100k are 2 completely different things and the first lends oneself to be much more flexible, opportunistic, and comfortable. (Also, if someone's paying you 3% or whatever, you can bet that their making more than that elsewhere.)

I completely understand what you're saying and there are many people pushing the "rice and beans" stuff. I think that's fine for getting out of a bad spot but not sustainable.

It may seem like an awful way to live, but I wouldn't have it any other way and, so far, it's paid off several times, both financially and through incredible opportunities I couldn't have otherwise taken.

rayiner2• 13 years ago

If substantial inflation is on the way, the winning play is not to save but take on debt.

YokoZar• 13 years ago

If substantial inflation is on the way, the interest rate earned by your savings will increase accordingly provided you're not investing in mattress funds.

umsm3• 13 years ago

Saving can include investments. Real-estate is a good one.

icelancer2• 13 years ago

The psychological|mental|logistical externalities that come with taking on debt usually render this strategy invalid.

michaelochurch• 13 years ago

Most commencement speakers are double outliers.

1. They're highly successful. Most people aren't.

2. The validation of an academic meritocracy where many top members (compared to anything else in society) hate the corporate world means that they're likely to be people of merit. Most highly successful people aren't.

They're great at inspiring, but they've had just too much good luck to know how the world really works and what people are actually like. You have to fail in a hard-core sort of way that most people wouldn't survive to get that understanding.

codex• 13 years ago

This is why I love Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford. He was brutally honest. I love how he attributes much of his success to not having a college degree.

hello_newman2• 13 years ago

"I love how he attributes much of his success to not having a college degree."

I love the part where he talks about Reed College and says something along the lines of "It was almost as expensive as Stanford" and he chuckled. The camera pans to the audience, and you can see the Professors behind him just stare with a straight face. Kind of seemed like he reminded all the students in the audience (and some adults I am sure) that they are now carrying around a mountain of debt.

kosei• 13 years ago

The other big piece of his speech I enjoyed was echoed here on "borrowed time":

'Would I regret spending my life this way if I were to get hit by a bus next week or next year? And the important corollary: Does this path lead to a life I will be happy with and proud of in 10 or 20 years if I don't get hit by a bus.'

enraged_camel2• 13 years ago

I further posit that, while graduation speeches are often inspirational, they rarely provide anything tangible, especially when boiled down to a list of "do this, don't do that."

I wonder how many of the kids at commencement will remember what the speaker told them a year from then? Or five years?

aashaykumar92• 13 years ago

I prefer commencement speeches with more of a personal touch to them, namely Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Stanford in 2005 [1]. This article definitely gives good advice but at the end of the day, it's pretty superficial. Steve Jobs tells 3 stories which beautifully take students through his life, but also give life long lessons that actually carry substance.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

arethuza• 13 years ago

The only bit of advice that I can pass on regarding UK graduations is to not get really drunk until after they have taken the graduation photographs.

Jun82• 13 years ago

Excellent points! I had my undergrad graduation more than two decades ago, so get to appreciate some of these a bit differently from the twentysomething "younguns" here. If I had to pick two most important, I'd say point 1 (with the caveat that his point is generalized to all socializing) and 7 (maybe not so for US but for countries where parents play a huge role in shaping kids' future career choices).

I would also add time, that's the most important thing! When you get older you'll see that a lot of the breadth-first approach to life that you can do in your youth has now become depth-first, i.e. you won't have the time or opportunity to branch out to much. So experiment a lot when you're young.

That's what I would want my son to learn are the most important things, not just to get a good job but for everything in lide: maintain and build a good network and manage time choices wisely.

jradakov• 13 years ago

I really like your breadth-first/depth-first analogy. I've never thought of it that way.

Jun82• 13 years ago

Sadly, not only that but the search depth gets smaller, too!

nzealand• 13 years ago

I have been thinking about the wisdom I want to impart to my son.

It has inspired me to live my life differently.

Lets see if I have the follow through.

(just because you are older and have less spare time, does not mean you can't branch out a little)

aasarava• 13 years ago

What are some of the things you've been inspired to do differently?

chollida1• 13 years ago

Can anyone else read the article. The above link just asks me to "log in".

tuxguy• 13 years ago

works fine for me, but one reason could be, that you read a bunch of wsj articles. in chrome, you try opening an incognito window(private mode) , & try loading the page.

jtbigwoo• 13 years ago

Interesting read. If I was asked to give a commencement speech (which never will be, by the way), I'd cover only three points.

-Make connections to others

My boy scout leader used to say, "Humans are herd animals." Even if you're an introvert and socializing sounds like the worst torture imaginable, at least invite a friend over to watch a movie once a week or sign up for the company bowling league. The research says it will make you healthier, happier, and longer lived. Also: eat with other people sometimes. I have no idea why it works, but eating together builds stronger relationships faster.

-Volunteer

The schools and charities in this country could use a ton more volunteer time that they're getting. Go read to kids or help with math homework once a week or even once a month. Help clean up at the local emergency food shelf. Tell the local boy scout troop you'll make them a web site. If you show up on time and work reasonably hard you will likely be treated like a hero. (And if the organization doesn't treat you like a hero, find a different place to volunteer.) As a bonus, you'll look awesome if you can start a sentence with, "I just came back from reading to first graders..."

-Give some money to charity

If you have a steady job, try to give at least 2 percent of your income to charity. Keep it to one or two institutions if you can. If you give a thousand dollars or more to most charities or educational institutions you get invited to go to all the fancy benefits and events they hold. That can be a great way to make connections for somebody with ambition. Again, if you're not married, there's no better way to impress a date than to take him/her to a fancy benefit dinner where they talk about how awesome donors (i.e. you) are.

GFischer• 13 years ago

As an added bonus, Volunteering makes you feel a lot better :)

http://www.livescience.com/4443-study-good-feel-good.html

(first link I found, plenty of other studies)

tomjen32• 13 years ago

Seems to be based on self reporting by students and they may have gotten the casual link wrong (ie happy people are more likely to volunteer to help others, therefore those who volunteer are more likely to be happy but volunteering doesn't make you happy).

At least it seems to me that people like me who don't care about strangers would get very little out if volunteering.

tomjen32• 13 years ago

Donating to charity (whether it is time or money) sounds way too loser like (letting others walk all over you) to bring much happiness. I get working in say an animal shelter, but you only get on life and it shouldn't be wasted.

As for impressing a date, who really wants to date a doormat.

spinchange• 13 years ago

The best and most honest commencement speech I've ever listened to was David Foster Wallace's to the Kenyon College graduating class of 2005 that has since been published as a short book. It's called "This is Water." There's a heavy liberal arts slant, but it's a great speech.

http://vimeo.com/57350121 (audio)

nbouscal• 13 years ago

I've listened to and read quite a few commencement speeches, and DFW's is the only one that made an actual impact on my life. I think to myself "this is water" at least once every day or two and it helps me to realign my perspective.

dgbsco3• 13 years ago

>Don't try to be great.

What the hell?

>Being great involves luck and other circumstances beyond your control.

Certainly that plays a roll...but to neglect your own agency in becoming "great" is idiotic.

dgbsco3• 13 years ago

This must some attempt at comforting one's inevitable mediocrity.

lmm• 13 years ago

If you set out to be great simple numbers mean you will most likely fail. The famous "mid-life crisis" can easily result. Best to accept that you most likely won't change the world, and be satisfied with things you can reasonably achieve.

dgbsco3• 13 years ago

I suppose it's the defeatist attitude that bothers me.

Yes, most people will become nothing, because they were never anything to begin with. But why not embrace your potential and fight for greatness. Humility, important - just as is managing your expectations, but acting powerless is so disturbingly passive and disappointing.

You define your greatness, and you fulfill that destiny. Acting as a passive being in life is boring, and meaningless. Accepting mediocrity is just one more step towards insignificance. Grasp your purpose through greatness and find something more rewarding that "accepting you won't change the world."

The "greatest" people want to change something, want to make things different, want to leave a lasting contribution - having that desire should be universally human. Farmers and factory workers are the ones who "accept their insignificance in civilization."

alexvr• 13 years ago

Awesome article. But I disagree with "Don't try to be great." Yeah, it takes luck, and yeah, there's nothing wrong with being "solid." But with that mindset, you won't be great, even if you're lucky. Do you think Bill Gates spent his 10,000 hours programming by accident? Was there nothing better to do? No. He was probably obsessively passionate about it, and he took advantage of his opportunity to become great. And do you think Apple made such a name for itself by coasting along, doing what everyone else does? Few people and few companies become great by not trying.

glass_of_water• 13 years ago

I think you and the author are saying the same thing. It's not that Bill Gates wasn't passionate about programming, it's just that he didn't spend 10,000 hours programming just to be rich and famous.

ryusage• 13 years ago

I don't think the author was saying not to put effort into anything, and certainly wasn't saying not to take advantage of opportunities. I think it just has more to do with your mindset. Are you doing things simply because you want to be "great", or is it because you actually enjoy what you do? If you're never going to be content until you become the next Steve Jobs, and that lucky break just never comes along, then what kind of life is that? You could spend a whole lifetime as a solid, successful person, and still be miserable. What a waste.

I would also argue that, yes, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates just did things they were obsessively passionate about, and the fact that their passions turned out to line up well with what was marketable and under-exploited at the time was accidental luck. And working hard was their choice, but what about the many others who were inevitably working just as hard? They might've had a similar passion, but they weren't lucky enough to have the skills, timing, and luck that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had. I would hope they don't spend their lives feeling inadequate because of that.

C.S. Lewis said, "Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it." Replace originality with greatness, and telling the truth with following your passion.

cjoh2• 13 years ago

The 11th thing your commencement speaker won't tell you?

"You just spent four years of your life here, and are now six figures in debt as a result. You didn't have to do that. Hopefully in that 4 years and with that six figures, you learned how to educate yourself without this institution."

pat_punnu3• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'll just call myself a surgeon and pick it up as I go along. No problem!

Who needs to spend time learning from best academic minds in CS? I can just tweet to some jackass Javascript 'rockstar'!

I'll just teach myself philosophy by reading these library books! I don't need some stuffy Oxford tutor who has been doing it for their whole life passing on their knowledge one-to-one!

Civil engineering? Making mistakes is how you learn!

I don't need a network and credentials! I'll just apply to this government policy institute with my GitHub profile and some retarded PHP library.

You people are fucking deluded. I can't believe tech has become so anti-intellectual.

DanBC• 13 years ago

I agree with you. Part of going to college is using their funding to get access to their equipment. Most people have no chance of getting to use a particle accelerator unless they go to uni or work with one.

You also get to hang out with a bunch of people doing similar things. You compete with them; you learn from them; you learn by teaching them.

You get to talk to people who have done important things in the field you're working in.

Of course, this is all in the ideal situation. Unfortunately modern education seems, for many people, to be "cram 'em in to get the funding". The education is secondary. Certainly some universities in the UK appear to be just extensions of 6th form education, and not the launchpad into proper academic rigorousness that they should be. (Not all, obviously. There's a lot of great work coming out of uni's.)

nollidge• 13 years ago

I was with you until the last part. Pretty stupid to smear an entire group of people based on the views of a smaller chunk of its members.

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

You're not learning from the best academic minds, and if you were that would be a bad thing anyway.

Having the best academic minds teaching Bachelors, or even Masters level comp sci is a waste of resources. They might be an excellent researcher but most of what you're covering is not particularly new or controversial and can be better taught by someone whose main skillset lies in the realm of teaching rather than research.

The idea that you need someone who might otherwise be doing important work to turn up and read their power-point presentation to a bunch of undergrads in order for them to learn is retarded. Almost anyone with a decent familiarity with comp sci could be reading that stuff, or the students could be reading it from one of the many books on the subject.

Lectures were originally there, as I recall, so that people could copy down from the extremely rare book that was being read, and with very few exceptions little has changed in that regard with respect to education.

And what the hell's your distribution for best anyway? I went to university, didn't meet anyone smarter than myself. I'm probably not a genius but since none of the professors were trying to do anything hard in our presence....

The best argument for university has nothing to do with professors, it has to do with other students you'll meet and having the chance to argue over subjects with them and work on projects with them. But that you need to be in a lecture hall with the best minds to learn? That's just cargo-cult bullshit.

mtkd• 13 years ago

Aaron Sorkin from last year - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwvilfPWHYI - 'there are some screwups heading your way'

snake_plissken• 13 years ago

My undergraduate commencement speaker was Charlie Rose. Wonderful speech.

tokenadult• 13 years ago

I can't believe that five hours after this interesting essay was posted, none of the comments have yet mentioned Paul Graham's essay (also a commencement speech never heard at an actual graduation) "What You'll Wish You'd Known" (January 2005).

http://paulgraham.com/hs.html

I like much of the advice of that essay, which is the second Paul Graham essay local friends recommended that I read. I have all my children read Paul's essay, as we are a homeschooling family precisely to get out of the rut of the usual school pattern of learning.

". . . . In fact I suspect if you had the sixteen year old Shakespeare or Einstein in school with you, they'd seem impressive, but not totally unlike your other friends.

"Which is an uncomfortable thought. If they were just like us, then they had to work very hard to do what they did. And that's one reason we like to believe in genius. It gives us an excuse for being lazy. If these guys were able to do what they did only because of some magic Shakespeareness or Einsteinness, then it's not our fault if we can't do something as good.

"I'm not saying there's no such thing as genius. But if you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right."

Great stuff, still good advice for young people almost a decade after it was first composed.

umsm3• 13 years ago

He mentions that "the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me"... why?

Livven• 13 years ago

Read the essay, and it should quickly become clear.

PebblesRox• 13 years ago

Wow, it was fun to read this again. This essay is how I first found out about Paul Graham and Hacker News. I was looking up graduation speeches because I was writing one for my 12th grade English class. It's neat to come back to it now that I'm about to graduate college!

cerebrum• 13 years ago

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

Frank Zappa

ucee054• 13 years ago

If you want to get laid

Zappa obviously didn't know about engineering school ;)

squozzer• 13 years ago

The only thing I would change is #10 -- Don't try to be great. I would change it to "Do great things, but don't strive to 'be great'". Obsession with "greatness" has destroyed nations.

ams6110• 13 years ago

4. Marry someone smarter than you are

Hard for this to work for both spouses, I guess....

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

John J. Chapman, Commencement Address to the Graduating Class of Hobart College, 1900:

When I was asked to make this address I wondered what I had to say to you boys who are graduating. And I think I have one thing to say. If you wish to be useful, never take a course that will silence you. Refuse to learn anything that implies collusion, whether it be a clerkship or a curacy, a legal fee or a post in a university. Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose. If you can take this course, and in so far as you take it, you will bless this country. In so far as you depart from this course, you become dampers, mutes, and hooded executioners.

As a practical matter, a mere failure to speak out upon occassions where no statement is asked or expect from you, and when the utterance of an uncalled for suspicion is odious, will often hold you to a concurrence in palpable iniquity. Try to raise a voice that will be heard from here to Albany and watch what comes forward to shut off the sound. It is not a German sergeant, nor a Russian officer of the precinct. It is a note from a friend of your father's, offering you a place at his office. This is your warning from the secret police. Why, if you any of young gentleman have a mind to make himself heard a mile off, you must make a bonfire of your reputations, and a close enemy of most men who would wish you well.

I have seen ten years of young men who rush out into the world with their messages, and when they find how deaf the world is, they think they must save their strength and wait. They believe that after a while they will be able to get up on some little eminence from which they can make themselves heard. "In a few years," reasons one of them, "I shall have gained a standing, and then I shall use my powers for good." Next year comes and with it a strange discovery. The man has lost his horizon of thought, his ambition has evaporated; he has nothing to say. I give you this one rule of conduct. Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don't be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time.

Things Your Commencement Speaker Won't Tell You

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