Advice for New College Grads & College Seniors

I was watching Luther's graduation ceremony online yesterday to cheer on all my nursing friends. The keynote speaker was the President & CEO of Marriott International & a 1980 Luther grad. He gave some great advice in his speech, so I thought I would summarize it here:

 Advice for New Grads

1. Be bold. Be bold in what you believe. Be bold in the choices and decisions you make. Be bold in standing by those decisions. Be bold in your curiosity.

2. Become comfortable taking risks. What's safe may be easiest, but I guarantee you will find the most happiness in the decisions that are the most uncomfortable and scariest.

3. Don't be afraid to change the world. Because you can. This advice isn't meant to by sappy or impossible to reach. Go out into the world with the knowledge and belief that the choices you make and what you do with your life will change the world.

4. Be a leader.

5. Don't limit yourself to safe decisions. Look just beyond the point where you can see yourself in the future and strive to reach it.

Now, advice to those incoming college seniors!

1. Put off "growing up" as long as possible. You may be yearning to just be done with school & move on with your life, but the "real world" isn't always as wonderful as you may think it to be.

2. Don't slack away your senior year. You may be tempted to just sort of give up & think that this last year won't really matter, but you will regret not trying your hardest. On the other hand, however...

3. Have fun. Choose to spend an hour laughing and goofing off with your roomies over spending it holed up in the library studying. Go out on a Wednesday night for your friend's birthday instead of reading those two chapters for tomorrow's class.

4. Enjoy the little moments. Things that you don't really spend the time thinking about at your school, but, in a few months, will look back on and think about.

5. Find something unique about your college town. Do something or go somewhere you've never been.