Valedictorian: Keep Your Eyes Open for Possibilities

Melissa Grossbarth addressed the graduation crowd at the . Below is the full text of her speech.

Welcome, Class of 2012, family members, friends, teachers, administrators, and the end of a very long school year. First, congratulations to the graduating class; I wish all of us the best of luck in the coming years, whatever path we may choose. I would like to begin by sharing a little tale I call “College: A Love Story”.

College applications for me were, in a word, stressful. In two words, incredibly stressful. As the college decision date drew closer, I became incredibly fixated on this one school – top tier, elite, great academic atmosphere, rigorous, the works. I told numerous people how I just knew it was the perfect school for me. I mean, it’s not like it was the only school I applied to – a number of other schools had already accepted me prior to hearing back from this heavily favored university. Take my second choice – when I saw that school, the nerdiness and thirst for knowledge that permeated its campus was infectious, and I wanted in. But still, I clung to the desperate hope that my top choice would take me, and I feared being turned down by this school most of all. I had slaved over my application, told the school how much I wanted to be there, showed it all of my credentials; I pretty much spilled my heart all over CommonApp. And in the end… I was waitlisted. My heart sank. It’s as though I asked somebody out to prom and they responded with, “Well, there are other girls I’d rather go with; I’ll get back to you on May 1st.”

In the month after being waitlisted, I reflected upon what made me love my top choice so much; I couldn’t really pin it down. That’s when I realized how, during the last few months of the college application process, I had been
suffering from a severe case of tunnel vision. I saw my top choice school as perfect, the only university for me; all other college felt “all right” in comparison. Yet, the more I thought about it, the clearer it was that I had sincerely ignored all of the bad traits of my top choice and all of the good traits of every other school I had applied to. I made out my top choice to be perfect and everything else to be sub-par, at best. So, as I tried to understand why that once top choice school was the only option for me, the perfection of that now former top choice melted away, and those schools that once seemed just “all right” to me became more and more desirable.

I idealized. We all do it, though. Look at the media, saturated with images of perfect bodies… except they’re photoshopped. We worship celebrities, often giving them a pass on their horrible behavior due to their fame and fortune. How about the concept of a “dream job”, a “dream home”, a “dream school”? Everything our society views as top-notch has had its flaws extracted to make it perfect and thereby desirable. But by removing the flaws, an integral part of these people or jobs or schools is taken away, and they exist in a realm beyond comparison.

The issue with idealization and perfection is that we get ourselves locked into this “perfect or nothing” mode of thought. Anything short of our dreams seems to us a dramatic downgrade. Those things are flawed, problematic, imperfect, not ideal. But the real problem isn’t that our other options are lacking in some way – it’s that our first picks and our favorites are made out to not be lacking at all. Think for a moment – when was the last time you actually had a perfect day? How about your favorite class – was there not a single time that you were at least a little bit disappointed in what you learned? Can you see not one drawback to that dream job you have your heart set on?

These things really aren’t as perfect as we’ve make them out to be. I’ll admit, I still can’t fathom why I favored my former top choice over the school I’ll be attending this fall. I glossed over the problems with that top choice school because I wanted to achieve perfection, yet by doing so I ignored reality and lost my ability to reason clearly and choose properly.

What I learned from this experience, though, is the importance of being realistic. I could have bemoaned my existence, complained about the unfairness of the application process, and begrudgingly sent in my deposit to a school I was less-than-thrilled to attend. But I didn’t. I took a long look at my options and truthfully evaluated them, doing my best to dispel any form of tunnel vision or bias. In the following days, it was still a bit of an ordeal to handle the waitlisting, and admittedly I was torn about what I would do if I was taken off the waitlist. But I understand now that all the schools I applied to could easily make me happy, something I hadn’t realized when I was so fixated on that former top choice. As I thought about all the options I had, I realized how many different opportunities I could take advantage of, depending upon my decision. None of these choices were perfect, but none of them were sub-par, that’s for sure.

Idealization only hurts the decision making process. By placing one option on a pedestal of perceived faultlessness, only one choice appears viable. If we instead ground ourselves in reality and access our choices completely and honestly, we gain greater insight into alternatives that could be just as good, if not better, for us than our preferred routes. I’m not saying to settle – never settle. But not being able to get the job you really wanted or having to attend your third choice school doesn’t mean you’re settling – it means you’re being flexible with the options available to you and determining what the best choice is, wholly and honestly. Besides, other options can have hidden benefits, and choices once unfavored could end up leading you to a great deal of success.

Do not sell yourself short, but don’t be disappointed if your preferred path doesn’t pan out. Dream big, but realize how large those dreams are, and be honest about what would be necessary to attain them. Set your eyes on achievement, but remember that success comes in all sorts of forms, and you may have to take off the blinders to see the possibilities around you. Be realistic, be flexible, and above all, keep going forward.

Once again, congratulations to the Class of 2012, and thank you