The graduation speech I would give.

Hi everyone! I haven't posted for really long while, mostly because I've been busy with a little thing called business school. But I finally graduated. WOOT!

So below is an article that I wrote for the MBA newsletter. It's the graduation speech that I would give, if I were asked (which I wasn't). Enjoy! Hopefully over the next few weeks I'll get a recap of my 2nd year posted here as well as pics from graduation. It's been a wild two years...and I'm tired!

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It is a truth universally acknowledged, that no one ever remembers speeches at graduations. I think this is because the speeches are too long, too boring, and
are given by people you don’t know and don’t care about. Now, I’m apparently not someone important enough or academically high achieving enough to get asked to speak at graduation…but I do have access to a semi-captive audience through the MBA Newsletter. So here for your reading enjoyment is the speech that I would give if I actually was asked to speak at graduation.

Last summer as I was driving cross-country to my internship in Arkansas, I spent a lot of time with my iPod on the road. The song Seasons of Love from the musical Rent came up and the lyrics brought tears to my eyes because they rang true to my experience in the MBA.

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year?
In daylight, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee[Diet Coke?],
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife,
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life?
How about Love?
Measure in love
Seasons of love


It seemed that each day seemed to last forever, a never-ending stream of classes, cases and cold calls…yet all of a sudden I was one year in and what I most remembered were the friends I’d made, the memories I had and the love I felt.

Another song came up on the ole iPod during that long, long drive: For Good from the musical Wicked (yes, I LOVE musicals). Yet again, the tears came as I thought of how this song really perfectly described how the people I have met in the program and how they have changed me personally.

It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you I have been changed for good


The people I have met during this experience (the students, the faculty, the families) have had a lasting impact on my life. As trite as it is, I truly would not be the person I am now without these people in my life.

Music is a powerful thing for me because it speaks what is in my soul better than I can say it myself. This week, I was driving home from school, I was listening to the radio this time I heard a new song by Miley Cyrus called The Climb. Once again, this song perfectly talks about how and why the MBA experience for me is so impactful.

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb


While not all of us have jobs yet, and not all of us have our lives figured out yet, and this all feels so important right now, in just a few years, months, even days, the only thing we will remember is the climb of the experience.

I hope that as we graduate and move on with our lives, that we won’t forget. That we will remember how we were stretched and who stretched us. We will remember how we changed and who changed us. We will remember how high we flew and who flew with us, and how far we fell and who offered their hand to pick us back up. Because that is what the MBA experience is about. The cases, the homework, the late nights, the tears, the drama, the stress, the laptop crashes, the study rooms, the laughs, the joys--it’s about the journey and people we took this journey with.

Happy graduation! Good luck in the future! And in the immortal words of the elders of the future: “Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes!