Greetings friends, family, faculty, and fellow graduates. Thank you all for being here to share in this moment. Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge any family and friends in the audience who have lost someone this year who was supposed to be walking across the stage with us today. Traditional speeches usually focus on thanking everyone who supported us through this journey, which is important and we should be doing this; however, today I am going to focus on what we typically don’t do, which is acknowledging our own contributions to our success. This is something that I know I am still working on and I know that many people in this room are still working on this as well.

As we are gathered here, a mixture of emotions ruminates in the air. Some of us may feel excited, some of us terrified, some of us ambivalent, and some of us optimistic. As I stand here on this podium I find myself experiencing a concoction of these contrasting emotions. Many of us will be attending celebratory dinners after this ceremony and while it is a joyous occasion, you might be dreading this due to the well anticipated question of what you plan on doing next; the question that will remove any sense of accomplishment we may feel after making it this far. Surrounded by friends and family members who you have only met twice in your life, you may feel attacked when someone decides to open Pandora’s box by asking, “Well, what’s next?” or “What are you going to do with that degree?” While they may have the best intentions when asking this, I know that these questions have made me feel criticized and unworthy. What I must remind myself is that in those moments, what they mean is that they recognize that by reaching this point, I am capable of anything.

We have been fed the idea that when we graduate, we must have a plan in place for what comes afterwards. While this may be important to some of us, it can be far from simple for many of us. If I have learned one thing during my college years, it is that plans are often thrown out the window and carried away by the wind and sometimes they circulate back to us, while other times they find their way into someone else’s life. I only came to this realization a few weeks back. I thought I had my plan figured out for next year, but as I stand here today, I still don’t and I am just learning to accept that this is okay.

For a long time, I have allowed myself to believe that I had to be at a certain phase of my life by a certain age; and somedays, I still struggle to move past this and allow myself to recognize what I have already accomplished. Instead of congratulating myself on my success, I find myself dissecting every detail to identify what I could have done better and deciding on what I need to do next.

I think that we do this all too often to ourselves. We are always attributing our success to others, but we rarely give ourselves any credit for our accomplishments.

It is difficult to make this transition because up until this point, our lives are often dictated by what others have told us to do. Now, we need to be better at trusting ourselves. We must remind ourselves that we took all those exams and that we wrote all the papers to get to where we are today. We have made it this far, which means that we are more than capable of making decisions and following our intuition to achieve our goals. While the path may not have always been evident, we have found our own, unique way to navigate through this labyrinth.

When I decided to give this speech, I wanted to make sure that no one here felt any less accomplished because they do not have a plan for what comes next after they walk out of this arena. We have fought through years of sleep deprivation and caffeine highs in order to stand here today and after all of that, we deserve self-recognition. So, take this moment to allow yourself to bask in the glory of all that you have accomplished. We are in the process of inventing ourselves and any inventor, big or small can attest to the fact that invention is an everlasting process, not a destination.

We have laid the foundation for our future selves, now we get to add the décor. This is not to undermine the importance of education, something we all hold in great esteem, but I think it is important to recognize that we are not merely the summation of our GPA. As millennials, we are often denigrated and constantly reminded that those who came before us have done great things; and while they have, I believe that this demoralizes our generation’s accomplishments and capabilities. If we have done anything as a generation, I think we have made it well known that we can find our own ways to get things done. We have accomplished so much by reaching this point and walking across this very stage. We are now a part of the 34% of Americans 18 or older to hold a college degree, as well as a part of the 6.7% of the world population that does. We are a part of an elite now and this makes us special.

Look around you, at the sea of faces. The majors of study represented in this room range anywhere from dance to Russian to statistics. There is no doubt in my mind that the people in this room will go on to great things because I have encountered many of you in one way or another, whether it be a class, employment, or at the gym. What I now realize is that success comes in a plethora of shapes and sizes. Don’t let one mold restrain you from reaching your version of success.

So, if you take anything from this speech, I want you to remember that you will be okay and that you are already doing an amazing job. You have made it through four of the toughest years of your life and to make it here today is a feat in itself. Do not let anyone undermine this accomplishment because you do not have a plan quite yet. Being here today with all of you is symbolic of how we have all been each other’s support systems for the past four years. As difficult as this journey has been, I believe that we will all realize how much we love this university and the people around us when we aren’t here anymore. Many people will say that college will be the best four years of your life and to enjoy them while they last. However, I firmly believe that while these four years are special, the rest will be boundless too.

And so, University of Iowa Class of 2017, I invite you to join me in a congratulatory celebration of not only your degree but also of yourselves. As we move on to whatever awaits us on the other side of this stage, I want you to remain as optimistic as you were four years ago when you moved into your dorm. We may not all know where we are going from here, but I do wish you all the best in getting wherever that may be. So, when you are at those dinners tonight when someone asks you what you plan on doing next, remember that what they are really saying is that they see you as a bundle of endless possibilities and that you are capable of anything.

Thank you.