DRAFT

Commencement Speech Text

Ramsay Sime Darby Healthcare College, Graduation February 2017.

Good morning everyone. Thank you to the Master of Ceremony.

[Greet every VIP with their proper names and designations.]

Today, you are graduating from college, ushering a new chapter of your lives.
This is the day where all of us are excited, elated, and inspired to see our
young minds completing a milestone in their journey. Life itself is a journey
which ends in death, therefore you yourselves need to choose on how to
make your lives meaningful and beneficial to others.
This commencement speech is an important tradition in higher education. It
is a time where graduates are given advices on how to be happy and
reminders to contribute and give back to the society. There is a reason why it
is called commencement speech. Your lives, or at least our lives for that
matter, will actually commence after we graduate from any institutions of
higher learning. It is after this moment that you will need to live on your own,
be a member that would benefit the society with your knowledge, skills, and
expertise, and in consequence, make the world a better place.
Graduates,
The world right now needs you. In the healthcare sector, we need people
with strong expertise and compassionate hearts. The proliferation of
diseases requires new technique of care from healthcare professionals. This
is exactly what Ramsay Sime Darby Healthcare College is aiming to be: a
foremost institution dedicated to healthcare education which will produce
competent, confident, and compassionate healthcare professionals.
As you begin your journey after this, you will face challenges and hardships
that you need to endure. Therefore, as a word of advice, I have three points
to emphasize on today. First, follow your passion. Truth be told, too many
people dont know themselves and their own passion. Our world is a fastpaced one, and to our peril, the speed on which the world moves right now
undermines moments of reflection and self-examination towards
understanding oneself. Human beings have flown beyond the earth and
landed on the moon, but yet we still dont know who we are, why we are here
at this point in space and time, and what we ultimately want. Yes, the
aforementioned questions might sound metaphysical to us, but please

remember, the repercussions that flow from these fundamental questions

will undeniably shape the way we steer our daily lives. Our problem now is
that, we relentlessly seek a thing that we initially created in our imaginations
to facilitate us in our livesmaterial wealththus granting it possession on
our lives. We could not work without considering its existence, even to
conceive a world without people seeking for endless wealth is unimaginable.
That is how insane have we become, yet we shamelessly call ourselves
rational.
The great Greek philosopher Socrates once said, through the writings of his
disciple Plato that the unexamined life is not worth living. Why? This is
because, only through rational and rigorous examination on ourselves will we
know who we are, and what we really want. These two considerations are
essential towards attaining happiness for an individual. Surely when you
dont even know what you want, you wont know what will make you happy.
Another reason is that, the power and limits of human understanding needs
to be acknowledged. In a world full of sophistry and flawed reasoning, to
think clearly is a rare feat of a person. Now, in order to be able to think
properly, the first step is to learn. But no one will learn if he is trapped in
compounded ignorance, where he does not know what he does not know.
How to know what we know and what we do not know? It is through selfexamination. Therefore, the very purpose of examining oneself is to know
what we do not currently know, and from that we can start to meaningfully
learn new knowledge. This is why towards the end of his life, Socrates
famously said that the only thing I know is that I know nothing.
So graduates, examine and ask yourselves. Who am I? What do I really want?
What will make me happy? After all, the most meaningful value of human
existence is to be happy, not to gain a career which brings tons of wealth but
also makes oneself miserable. To sum up this point, I would simply say:
please follow your passion. Your lives are yours to live, do not let anyone else
decide it for you. Take charge of your lives, and go, march confidently ahead.
Secondly, do know that this is not the end. Continue to educate yourselves
either formally or informally. Outside the college, while you are working,
there are much more educational opportunities that you can take advantage
of. You might pursue your education at a higher level, or you might also seek
education informally for your own satisfaction. But the bottom line is, keep
yourselves educated. This is for two reasons.
Reason number one, it can be a means towards a better end. Higher level of
skills and expertise means more career and professional opportunities for
you in the future. So you can expand your horizons and profile, thus
improving your material lives.

The second, and more important, reason is that knowledge is and should be
an end in itself. Meaning, you seek knowledge because you enjoy getting
knowledge. What do I mean by this? When you gain new knowledge, you
points of view, lines of reasoning, and ultimately belief will continue to be
refined and improved in its sophistication and soundness. Human beings are
rational animals, so stated by Aristotle long ago, and this rationality is one
of the defining characters of a human being par excellence. By assuming this
definition, it does not follow that all humans are automatically rational in the
proper sense. The ability to think clearly in a logical manner needs to be
nurtured and practiced, and through continual education, albeit maybe
informally, this aspiration can be achieved.
Thirdly, be the change that you want to see. Surely, the world is a messed up
place. Inequality, injustices, atrocities happen everywhere at this particular
moment as we speak. Every sane and rational human being will cringe at all
the problems that are occurring around the world now. Sadly, not every
person knows this bleak reality, which is a manifestation of the saying
ignorance is bliss. To quote the poet T.S. Eliot in his Burnt Norton,
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Only you, people with knowledge, will know that there are things that need
to be rectified in this complex world of ours. To change this, we cannot just
sit idly by and hope for change to occur or a messiah to come down from the
heavens to save us. This is our responsibility, especially as people endowed
with knowledge and skills, to make and be the changes that we desire.
Rhetoric alone is not enough, we need actions which are productive from
people who know themselves and understand deeply the root of our
problems that characterize the human condition at the moment.
Here, whatever you learn in college and outside of college needs to be
reflected upon seriously. Your knowledge of public health, of anatomy and
physiology, of medicinal properties, and other things need to be brought to
practical use this time, and for the purpose of making our human condition
better. When you act to change things, act with the guidance with knowledge
because that kind of action is the fountain of wisdom.
Remember, education is an ongoing process. Get knowledge and wisdom
wherever you find it, for human excellence lies in the possession of them. I
wish you the best of luck in your journey of life after this graduation. I would
like to congratulate all of you who succeeded academically in this hall. To

close my speech, and as you embark on your journey, I would like to, again,
quote from T.S. Eliot,
Fare forward, travellers! not escaping from the past
Into different lives, or into any future;
You are not the same people who left that station
Or who will arrive at any terminus,
While the narrowing rails slide together behind you
Fare forward, you who think that you are voyaging;
You are not those who saw the harbour
Receding, or those who will disembark.
Here between the hither and the farther shore
While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.

Thank you.