College is a wonderful time to learn and grow as an individual. It’s more about experiences than it is about academics. Four years fly by at the speed of light but leave you with nothing but infinite memories you carry to cherish forever. With that said, the end of college means the beginning of a whole new era which involves, needless to say, a load of responsibilities.
Don’t let it overwhelm you, yet. The end is a bittersweet experience but bidding farewell to the student life is as important as moving forward with your career. Before stepping into the new, scary world out there, living up the last few moments with your friends, teachers and family is imperative. The convocation enables you to do so.
Keep reminding yourself why you were picked to speak at the commencement. It’s either because of your academic excellence or just your lovely, charismatic personality. Make sure you jog your memory back to the countless memories, words of wisdom that you learnt along the way and present them in engaging, funny one-liners. Trust me when I say, a reflection of your personality will be a breath of fresh air after what seems like 100 other speakers who’ve already put your audience to sleep.
It’s important to know that you’re like the ones in the audience. You too are graduating and so, save yourself from speaking about big things on the horizon, instead roll back to the time you’ve all spent together. Reflect on the big memories you’ve lived with your fellow classmates.
1. Inspiration is important
You can get inspired by anything and everything. Before you start writing, seek inspiration. You can always hit YouTube for celebrity speeches at colleges/high school or just memorable high school and college speeches made by your peers or just someone on the internet. Many companies provide numerous ideas/ help with graduation speech ideas about where to start. Not just that, you can always read your favorite quotes and write something around. Also, if you’re one of those who love to read, you can always take inspiration from your fictional friends who even though, live in books but are so on point with real life!
2. Don’t ramble
Don’t stress too much. Graduation speeches are meant to be light-hearted and needless to say, memorable. With that said, all engaging stories have a beginning, middle, and end—think of your graduation speech the same way. The opening must be able to grab people’s attention while the middle must keep it and finally, a neat, closing message to tie it all up in the best possible way ever!
Begin your speech with quirky remark and make it fun during with captivating stories and finish it up with a quote from your favorite movie. Structure it such that it doesn’t get monotonic or too formulaic. Make it easy for the audience and also, yourself to deliver.
3. Have a center message/ theme
With a proper structure, it is important that the speech is in an effortless flow. Make sure you know what message/ theme you want it to revolve around so that the audience doesn’t get too confused and consequently, bored. String the quotes you have in your mind such that they’re in sync with the core message or a theme. For theme ideas, great way to start is look around for something your class is passionate about like adversity, online privacy, student debt etc.
4. Sweet and Simple (and Short!)
Know your audience. It’s imperative that you empathize with them. Imagine being in their shoes, sitting in an auditorium, listening to people (one after another) rambling on endlessly, how fun would that be? The answer is absolutely no fun! So, keep it short and sweet. Don’t try too hard with fancy words or deep themes. Make is simple and remember to keep it engaging with funny jokes and/ or great anecdotes. Don’t beat about the bush too much, short, simple and sweet is the way to go!
5. Practice makes a man Perfect
Well, the famous proverb, the aforementioned is pretty spot on. Curating a perfect speech is not enough, the delivery is quite as important. Nerves always mess things up but guess, not this time. We got to fight the butterflies by practicing, practicing and practicing.
The best way to practice it out loud. From standing in front of the mirror to recording yourself to just bribing your BFF with a coffee to listen to it, try it all! No room to mess up on the most important day of not only your life but hundreds of others’ lives as well.
6. Let them see you!
You have been given the opportunity to deliver a speech on convocation for a reason, shine through. It’s your time to be in the spotlight and let them see you, your very charming personality. Big words and fancy quotes don’t matter if you don’t add your essence to the speech. Be yourself, as clichéd as that sounds but don’t shy away from your true self.
We get it; it’s a lot to take in. This is where you can frantically look around people in your life and/ or online resources for help. Ask your parents about their graduating or even your teacher or just your friends for what they would typically enjoy listening to. With that, online resources like that of wepapers.com is just a click away to ensure that your graduation is the best and most memorable day of your life.
