Valedictorian Csanad Kocsis
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Fellow graduates, faculty, administration, friends, and family,
I’m honoured and overwhelmed to be speaking before all of you today. It’s really quite amazing to have been chosen to be valedictorian and I appreciate it every bit. With the honour of course, comes some responsibility and most of that responsibility takes on the form of this speech.
It’s important to note that I am most certainly not, by any means, a speech guy. I was really freaking out about writing a speech so, just like anyone would, I tried Googling what a good valedictorian speech entails. Most websites suggested keeping it short and to the point and avoiding clichés. I may or may not have followed these suggestions.
In the process, I made the mistake of watching videos deemed “Best Valedictorian Speech of All Time” which did not help calm my nerves. Anyways, as it so happened, the piece of advice which probably helped me out the most came from my dad. Sweet and simply he told me that the worst thing that could happen would be that I never get chosen to be valedictorian again. So with that, here I am.
Over our three years here at Glendale we’ve certainly learned some obscure topics; things like solving orthogonal systems using matrices, calculating the percent ionization of a diprotic acid, how neurons in our bodies communicate by use of chemical neurotransmitters across a synapse and countless other equally intriguing concepts.
These are certainly all important and interesting things to learn and know but I hope that we as a class were all able to take more away from Glendale and our teachers than just that. We don’t always realize we’re learning a lot of these things until we’re put through difficult situations at which point these skills are given a chance to see the light of day.
This past September I went off to university and I was certainly nervous. The shock of it all didn’t really hit me until the morning of residence move-in. Packing my last few things was very strange and although I was going to be barely an hour from home, it nonetheless felt wrong. That feeling carried on with me throughout the morning.
The move in process went very smoothly but all I wanted was to go home. Living away from home, starting university; it was just too much to process at once. It’s during these tough points in your life that you really realize that you aren’t even close to understanding the meaning of change.
Time passed and that day and even that week went by. Slowly but surely I adjusted to my new environment using those not so obvious skills we’ve all acquired throughout our education by means of interacting with the people around us.
By the end of o-week I can honestly say that I felt at home. Mind you the people I met were certainly very nice; I still had to be able to introduce myself and talk to them, and that’s not always as easy as it may seem.
The life lessons we pick up along the way are so much more crucial than we may think. School is always thought to just teach us how to succeed educationally but there is a huge social part to it as well.
Things such as making friends, building relationships, working with others and having faith in ourselves may seem so minor to us now but chances are it’s just because they’ve become second nature to us. Nevertheless, it is exactly these skills that allow us to make smooth transitions as we move from one stage of our lives to the next. When you show up at university, college or a new job you don’t struggle, you simply fit in.
Of course we can’t forget the whole reason we go to school - to learn the class material that will help us do our jobs right, whether it be continuing our education or joining the work force but regardless of where we are right now, let’s take this opportunity to take our minds of off all that, leave the stress behind and, at least for this evening, relax.
A majority of the people in this room have also gone through a lot of big changes in the past few months. Parents, friends and family have had their own changes to handle. I’m certain for some it’s been both emotionally and mentally stressful. I certainly hope it went as smoothly as possible.
In any case and most importantly I believe that we need to look at what the future holds for us. I can honestly say that I have no clue what the future holds for any one of us.
This is something that everyone needs to discover for themselves. We need to live our lives and see where that takes us. Some things that I can say are that I hope the future is full of success, I hope the future is happy and I hope that everyone will be where they want to be.
Lastly I’ll leave off with a quick quote from Søren Kierkegaard.
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Thank you.