Those who achieve great academic success are asked to provide advice. Scholars have written extensively about the subject, in order to grasp a greater understanding of the human experience. That’s what they say but, I think it’s because they like to write about how important they are. For a time, I believed in what many academics believed about themselves. That was that finding the truth was the greatest responsibility of an academic, as if the truth were something hidden from one group and revealed to another.

Then I began to realize that this idea is really saying that there is one superior body of knowledge over another. To discount someone’s experience, and not to acknowledge their perspective is to proclaim one’s self better.

What then is the focus of the academic? The focus is to look at a situation and try to understand the perspectives of experience. The intellectual looks at the experience of people from all walks of life and attempts to reconstruct those experiences into their vision of the world. Not an easy task, and much more difficult than finding the truth.

My greatest education comes from the experiences with my family, friends, classmates, and teachers and I would like to thank them for sharing a piece of themselves.

The responsibility of an academic, though, is different than a focus. The responsibility of an academic is to take the knowledge attained by studying experience and using it. The responsibility then, is to make the world a better place. This is not just the responsibility of academics, it’s everyone’s responsibility.

Typically this speech talks about the future and it’s brightness. I’d like to quote my dad, who has studied experience to the highest degree. "Life takes on meaning in the minute-by-minute reality in which we experience ourselves achieving the ordinary things." We spend the majority of our time worrying about the future or remembering the past. To live in the moment and to enjoy it fully is rare, and something worth attaining.

That is why understanding the varieties of experience among individuals is so important. The responsibility of making the world a better place starts and ends by changing the conditions of experience. Love, environment, routine, and support are the basic structures of experience, and working to improve those conditions will make the individual experience better.

We all have a vital role in our community and in the world. As you depart, go and give your life meaning as you see fit because your experience is your own.