Comments from the Student Speaker

Thank you Dr. Oblinger and congratulations to the graduates and honorees gathered here tonight.

When I was preparing to talk before you tonight and to reflect on four years of last-minute papers, late-night ice cream runs, and three-hour Monday classes, I kept trying to think of one word to sum up my N.C. State experience. But finding one word to fit four years was a little hard.

Of course, thanks to the tireless efforts of our Public Affairs Office, the word “Achieve” immediately popped into my head.

But that word is epitomized here tonight by more than I could ever say in words. This is a room of achievers. From the student that juggled two jobs with a full course load and still graduated with honors to the athlete with a 4.0 or the faculty member that exemplifies the best in both teaching and research. These room pulses with achievement.

So instead, looking back at four years of research, Student Media jobs, service-learning classes, and campus clubs, the word “engagement” kept coming to mind.

What do I mean – engagement?

Engagement is not just learning from books and lectures but taking time to engage your passion outside of the classroom. In office meetings with professors. In research labs. On journal pages. It’s finding a problem in your community and gathering the tools and people to combat it. It’s taking your academic experience and applying it not just to your profession but to the lives of people in society. Engagement is what breaks down the walls of a university to reach out to the greater community.

From the faculty member that engaged me in the classroom by pulling me aside to suggest I submit my work for competitions to the Alternative Spring Break trip that engaged 16 of us in a building project in the Third World, my undergraduate career – like many of yours, I imagine – has been the epitome of engagement.

I think we’d all agree that many of our best lessons over four years didn’t come from sitting behind a desk. They came from laboratory experiments gone horribly awry or late nights talking over the airwaves on the student radio station. They came from residence hall neighbors unlike anyone you’d ever seen before – or in some cases – hoped to see again and from grabbing a bite to eat with the professor after class.

Because years from now, while our 4.0’s and magna cum laude distinctions will be impressive, it is those experiences that pulled us away from our desks and into conversations and service and co-ops and community projects that will be even more impressive. On our resumes and – more importantly – in our memories.

I hope all of you have had the opportunity to feel engaged at N.C. State but if not, I challenge you to become active in your next community, whether it be a new campus, a new workplace or a new town. Seek out opportunities to engage – as a scholar, a worker, a friend, or a servant. Don’t just be. Be active.

To those of you left behind in this Wolfpack community, I challenge you to be engaged as well. To seek out opportunities to engage your peers, your students, or your faculty. To share your passions with those you meet and to share in theirs. Skip e-mail for face time in your professor’s office. Invite a student to participate in your research. Join an intramural team with strangers. Spend an afternoon volunteering in Raleigh. Let campus become your community.

In the words of Sen. George Mitchell, “Wherever you go in life, you’ll be part of a society – a neighborhood, a community, a state our great nation. Be active in that society. Do something in and with your life.”

Thank you and congratulations to you all.

 

by Carie Windham