A More Honest Commencement Address

Even at a 98.6 college (All you need to graduate is normal body temperature), the commencement speaker typically tells the students to dream big.

That’s always been disingenuous—Many of those graduates were lucky to get and hold a mundane job, for example, marketing coordinator, school teacher, or construction supervisor.

“Dream big” is even more disingenuous today. Solid, well-paying careers are ever rarer thanks to automation, offshoring, and ratcheted-up requirements: technical, interpersonal and general intelligence. Many if not most graduates of Southwestern State University at Mudville will, for lack of ability and/or drive, end up in a cycle of a few-month lackluster gig followed by a few months of desultory looking, followed by another lackluster gig.

What would an honest commencement speaker say to them? My PsychologyToday.com article today offers one shot at it: