To the Graduating Class of 2020

When I graduated high school, I graduated within the top percentile of my class but I did not hold the titles of salutatorian or valedictorian. This means I didn’t get the chance to write a commencement speech and share with my fellow graduates the praise and glory that we all deserved for accomplishing such a huge feat! College didn’t offer me that opportunity either, lol, so I thought why not give it a try here. 2020 has posed a completely different scenario to prospective graduates, from pandemic to civil unrest to rampant humanitarian crises around the world to a staggering economy in the midst of a recession to Zoom classes seeming endless to TikTok becoming the new club setting. What has life become?

Needless to say, the world has been greatly lacking in gleefulness, optimism and opportunities. Chaotic as it is, hope can be found, safeguarded and used to amplify the futures of the Class of 2020; all that needs to be done comes from within. Individually we can all pitch in to make sure the Class of 2020 (highschool, undergraduate and graduate programs) is not only proud of their accomplishments, but can look to the future for bright landscapes and wide horizons.

To the Graduating Class of 2020:

“How are you holding up? An odd, somewhat retrospective question to ask, but necessary indeed. This world is, for lack of better words, on fire and you’re standing in the middle. What does that feel like? Can we unravel that thought? 

2020 hit pretty hard and shook us all to our core. December 31st, 2019 shall be remembered as one of the best days ever simply because it got the chance to escape this year by one minute- how lucky?

In all seriousness- you have just graduated from high school, college, grad school and YOU DID IT! Congrats to all of you who preserved in the face of astonishing odds. You’ve chosen to press on, follow your dreams, get your degree all when your back was against the wall. The courage, bravery and stallionness embodied in all of you is fierce and unmatched.

I can’t say, I would be able to manage and withstand such an unprecedented time. After hearing I would need to study in my dorm room for the remainder of the semester, all while classes taking place online, school games cancelled, and buildings closed would not sit right with me. It would look like a tantrum, excessive crying and loud Billy Joel “We Didn’t Start the Fire” song playing in the background and that’s just to get through the first week of quarantine. #yikes

As Future said, “Beat the odds, do numbers, and remain humble.” I take my hat off to you all for shaking up the normative of school participation and showing so many around you that life can and will still continue, studying will continue and dreams will be chased.

From a member of the Graduating Class of 2018, Class of 2020 you are outstanding! While the world you walked into didn’t welcome you in the way you thought it would, given the economic downturn of our time, you still stated your claim, took your first steps as a post-graduate and that in itself, is the definition of courage and completion.

Thank you for giving me hope and sharing with me that nothing is too big, too difficult and too uncomfortable to be faced without the help of a little courage, a little faith and the thought that something great could be waiting for me on the other side of all of this.

Cheers to all of you and much prosperity in all of your futures. THE SKY’S THE LIMIT!

“There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more everyday like a photograph coming into focus.”

—Jodie Foster

Peace and blessings,

Sigourney