Jon Stewart, 2004 Commencement

The other day Amy and I were talking about law school commencement addresses and how they should be much more realistic about the demands of the profession and the challenges those fresh-faced JDs will confront.  She heard one recently that basically said, "Pursue justice!" which is great advice, but utterly insufficient.  In Amy's words, the message should be, "You're going to have to struggle to do the right thing, the hours will be long, your personal life will suffer, and you have to decide whether all of that is worth it."

Today she came across Jon Stewart's 2004 commencement address to the College of William & Mary, his alma mater, and even though it's two years old, it's a helluva lot better than most of the speeches that'll be made around the country over the next few weeks.  It's hilarious and not that long, so you'd probably enjoy reading the whole thing, but here's what really grabbed me:

When I left William and Mary I was shell-shocked. Because when you’re in college it’s very clear what you have to do to succeed. And I imagine here everybody knows exactly the number of credits they needed to graduate, where they had to buckle down, which introductory psychology class would pad out the schedule. You knew what you had to do to get to this college and to graduate from it. But the unfortunate, yet truly exciting thing about your life, is that there is no core curriculum. The entire place is an elective. The paths are infinite and the results uncertain. And it can be maddening to those that go here, especially here, because your strength has always been achievement. So if there’s any real advice I can give you it’s this.

College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don’t worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency which I imagine, after going through the program here, is quite strong…although I’m sure downloading illegal files…but, nah, that’s a different story.

Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.

I was always a good student--or at least a conscientious one--and I certainly identify with 1) feeling stunned after graduation because there was no clear path to follow and no ready-made metrics to define success or failure, and 2) feeling that I've continued to define life as a sequential series of assignments to be completed--or even a series of contests to win--rather than as an endless array of overlapping experiences to be had.

But I'm working on it, all the time (with a lot of help), and I think I can find better ways to channel my conscientiousness, and my competitiveness, and create more space to allow myself to just be, to experience life more fully, to love what I do and get good at it.  Thanks, Jon.  (Damn, for someone who doesn't even watch "The Daily Show," I've been thinking about Jon Stewart a lot lately.)

tags: jon stewart william & mary commencement address

Comments

[Peter Caputa]

I always excelled at school. But, I hated doing what I was told to do. Luckily, I went to a school (WPI) that provides a lot of flexibility for an undergrad engineering program, as a lot of the course work is projects. And we got to choose what projects to work on. That was my saving grace, because I failed to understand how Mass Transfer was going to help me (atleast when I was taking it). Of course, my Chemical Engineering degree is now pretty useless to me. But, I learned how to learn. And that's the best result that anyone in college can take away. Learning how to learn.

[ed]

Thanks, Pete. That is a great takeaway.

The equivalent experience for me was leaving Duke (where I spent my freshman year and had both way too much fun and not nearly enough) and going to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The SMFA has no curriculum and no majors--students take any courses they want--and some people drown in that freedom and some people flourish. It wasn't an entirely smooth ride for me, but I did get my shit together, and I loved my work, because I had chosen it.

When I decided to return to academia, I chose Brown because it had a similarly flexible curriculum--you could take anything as long as you met your major requirements. I worked my ass off and loved every minute of it.

[ann michael]

What phenomenal advice - not just to the graduating classes, but to everyone. Thanks for finding this!