Graduation Ceremony Speech

Justin Singh Wilson

Honourable Chief Guest, Respected Principal, Professors, Lecturers, Parents and dear friends!

Very Good Morning/Good evening to all of you and warm wishes to all the graduates.

Here, I am extremely glad and delighted to stand in front of you on this auspicious and special occasion of the graduation ceremony. It gives me immense pleasure on giving an address on this arena. Graduation is always a special occasion.  It is special for the graduates whose success this ceremony celebrates. Moreover, it is special for all those who contributed to this success as parents, professors, lecturers, administrative staff and friends. On this day, on behalf of all graduates, I extend my gratitude from the depth of my heart to all of you for your sincere work, efforts, supports and encouragement.

My dear friends, we are celebrating the successful completion of a further stage of our academic careers. Really, I can say, it is a moment of joy for all of us. Our parents, our instructors/tutors and our friends are elated to see our success on this day. Most of us may move on to higher education and advanced qualifications and degrees. But definitely, we will always look back and remember with longing this unforgettable special day of success.

Here, I would like to quote an extract from Winston Churchill’s that says like this, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”  Yes, of course, it is obvious there might be a lot of stumbling from failure to failure for this success. But forwarding with enthusiasm helped us with this achievement. What then is success and how can we achieve it? We are all familiar with the saying that “Success is a journey, not a destination.” It is a clear reminder that at no moment can we stop and, claiming that we have attained success. It tells us that targets we set for ourselves are merely milestones on a journey that lasts a lifetime.

This day may be a turning point for a further stage of planning and monitoring for our progress in our life. I remember a statement from George Bernard Shaw’s quotations that says, “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Yes, change is vital for progress in our life. We have the freedom to change that we have coveted and waited for. Freedom is a precious gem that can be worsening into adeadly weapon when is abused. It should not be a sow the seeds of its own destruction.  As we begin to enjoy this newly acquired freedom and prepare ourselves to fly with our own wings. The future is almost impossible to predict since there are no guaranteed or even secure jobs or professions. The evolving technology can wipe out the need for any section of the workforce. As we are accomplishing that goal we are graduating. Here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of course. We should contest as human beings, thinkers, adventurers – not merely workers. A worker is someone who is trapped within the repetition of the system set up before him. But now, we have successfully shown that we were the best adventurers. We did what we were told to the extreme.

Finally, I would like to say that if we succeed to govern ourselves, continuing to learn, persevere and working well within a team, if our work is not guided by morality and ethics, our success even if achieved, will be empty. I would like to say that we should not allow our desires to succeed, to dull our moral and ethical sense or to blind us to injustice and abuse. We should be responsible citizens and make it our duty to concern ourselves with the moral dimension not only of what we do but of the way we assess what is going on around us. We should not accept corruption as a way of life. Stick to our principles and have faith in the strength of willpower and determination.

We have the potential to have a positive influence on society, for remember – small does not mean insignificant. There is a saying in English: 'Mighty oaks from little acorns grow', meaning of course that great things can come from small beginnings.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as a graduate by myself. I was moulded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I was enlightened. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all graduates.

Thank you.