Class of 2024: you guys were a riot this year. Thank you for making it so entertaining, spirited, and rewarding. For most of you, a lot of learning occurred, and that’s what makes my job so satisfying. So, congratulations! Be proud of yourself. Smile. Embrace your friends and celebrate for the next few months before your next chapter begins. Life will come around faster than you will know it, so your preparedness is crucial to your success.
Your four years of high school were marked by expectations and opportunities that might not be presented to you in the real world. You could have possibly received an extension on an assignment that previously had a hard deadline, or you might have performed poorly on an assessment and were given an opportunity to retake it, or perhaps you were given a project with expectations that were completely outlined and modeled for you. Maybe none of these exact accommodations were afforded to you, but in a plethora of other ways, LM, as an institution, has offered you ample latitude to learn, make mistakes, and improve.
Reality is different. University is hard. Work is hard. Life is hard. The expectations that others have of you increase and the demand set upon you follows suit—but you can do it. You will be fine. You will overcome your issues. You will need to lean into the challenge presented to you, foreign as it might feel, but it is your response to that difficulty that will actually define your character and personhood. These last four years were an exploratory building period—a foundation-laying phase. Who you become and your influence in this world are products that result from you embracing life when it gets hard and the cycle of growth that follows. So I dare you: go the extra mile. Put in the extra hours. Look back on all that you’ve accomplished and demand even more of yourself. Don’t ever let yourself say, “I can’t.” Do whatever it takes to succeed and thrive. I’ve seen the makings of this in each of you and I can’t wait to hear where that tenacity, passion, and grit takes you. Nothing gets easier; you just handle hard better, and always remember that Character Counts.
