Prospective graduates are busy this month receiving advice about moving forward into their future.
Teachers, family, and friends have been doling out tips and suggestions this year to ensure each student is ready to go out into the “real world.” Much of the year is spent worrying about what the graduate has chosen to do, as most often they are required to go through a specific process involved in following a particular path. Even before that final year of education, applications for both employment and education may have been completed and sent to college and trade programs. Local employers who have seen the dedication displayed by a certain student and need to find hirees, students be able to find a job here. That has been happening all year here and the final official speeches will be given during the ceremony by a few classmates, as well the honored guest speaker and for some those particular words of advice speak to them. A few others are still unsure if they should move forward in their lives, or make the unsettling change to leave and go out on their own. They may have spent the past twelve months mentally grappling with this last year and what it means to go out into the real world of work or preparing to do so.
Most of the matriculating seniors may take most of these words to heart, but many are not able to be mentally present during the ceremony and fully take in its personal significance. Eighteen- year-olds are thought of as adults, but their brains are still developing. Everyone in attendance at the ceremony is showing their love and admiration gathering to celebrate together and their hearts are full.The warm, safe, comfort of home will tempt them and some of the graduates will decide to stay home for a little while longer. The statistics showing how many graduating seniors come back to Meeker have been available in the past, and it appears that historically a great number of them may go off for a year without a specific plan that fits their needs and return home in a year.
Taking a year off is often a euphemism for “I can’t decide what to do” so no decision will be made.. It could mean taking what many Europeans call a gap year, yet it still requires the family be part of that plan. It involves hard work on the part of both, as it may allow a student to work from home so to speak.
Those words may mean something completely different these days. Personal experience with “zoom” affecting one’s work and study during the recent full-blown pandemic has changed all of our perspectives. No matter what it means, careful planning ahead of time to guarantee the successful execution of that plan during the transition period ensures success.
Travel promoters first started encouraging folks to “Stay at home-close to home” much earlier than the first days of the pandemic. Gas prices were up, tourism was down, so they worked together on strong advertising campaigns to encourage everyone go on a very different kind of journey, the “stay-cation.” That really meant, “Don’t go too far y’all, we will leave the light on for you” as one successful national hotel chain urged.
It was possible to travel around to the closest sights in your area at that time to save both money and gasoline. Transitioning back from the variant of that first Staycation during the height of the pandemic, it is no longer possible to evoke those words for the students who might be choosing a little while to make plans. While many graduation speakers will lighten their speeches with such exhortations as “You Be You,” I am hopeful that others encourage all their listeners to have a plan for recognizing who they are, as well as who they honestly would like to be in the future. Happy Graduation!
BY DOLLY VISCARDI | Special to the HT
