Growing Up – Commencement Address

Good morning/afternoon/evening, faculty, families, friends and most importantly the class of 2025 graduates. Wow we are finally here. My name is MPontbriand, a fellow member of class of 2025. First of all I’d like to thank everyone for being here and I’d like to present my commencement address. Thank you to Mr.Aliberti/Mr.Young for having me speak today, kind of a bold move, considering I can’t make it through a presentation without sweating through my shirt or having an anxiety attack. We did it. We actually made it. Now let’s take a minute and take it all in.  

Yes, it can be overwhelming but with joy and happiness. Over the past four years we have all grown in different ways that are beyond academics.  Some of us faced heartbreaks, failure, or anxiety. We have watched everyone grow into young adults, we learned how to support someone who needs a friend or someone to talk to, we learned to stand up for what we believe in, and how to apologize when we are wrong. That’s growth. This is the type of growing up that matters most. We didn’t do it alone.  Behind each of us are teachers who believed in us, parents and guardians who supported us, friends who cried and laughed with us, and mentors who challenged us to do better. Let’s take a moment to thank them, not just for showing up today but for supporting us again and again. 

It’s wild to think about how far we have come. Before we walked these halls as teenagers trying to figure it all out, we were kids with big dreams and bigger hearts. We arrived at school years ago with missing teeth, untied shoes, scraped knees, backpacks that were way too big for our small bodies, and dreams that changed every 10 minutes. Back then, adults would ask us constantly “What do you want to be when you grow up?” and we would say things like police officer, veterinarian, astronauts and fire fighters, because we thought anything was possible.  

We all remember those days, when we would tell adults we wanted to be doctors or police officers without any hesitation. And while some of us dream of those things, most of us now realize that growing up isn’t about finding a job. It’s about learning who we are, who we want to become and what kind of impact we want to make on the world. 

 Over these past four years we have made memories that will stay with us forever. Whether it was cheering on football and basketball games, rushing to finish medical science and history projects before the deadline, late night group chats about homework that we barely understood, and laughing so hard at lunch that we could barely breathe. These moments were just more than fun. They taught us how to push through challenges, and to support each other. This will last with us forever and this is what   made school worth going to.  Hopefully we can take all the friendships and memories we made at this school and move forward.   

 Now, we turn the page to a new chapter of our lives. Yes, we are scared, we are nervous but we’ve learned how to persevere through challenges. We’ve learned how to conquer those fears. We learned that we are capable.  If we accept the challenge, we will give it our best.  We can accomplish anything we put our minds to, absolutely anything.  No matter what comes next, we can face it, because we’ve already overcome so much together. So let’s step forward with the courage, with hope, and with the same determination that got us here today.  

 Class of 2025 we can proudly say we survived high school, and honestly, if we can survive group projects, we can survive anything. So let’s go out there, make our mark and be the great people we are destined to be. And don’t forget to call your parents, no seriously they earned it. 

Congratulations, everyone. I’ll say it again: we did it and we did it together. 

Thank you. 

“The Graduates” by Game of EPL5 & LUMIX G20/F1.7 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.