The following is the Salutatorian Speech by James Thomason, recent graduate of Saint Monica’s High School in Santa Monica, California. I was in attendance at commencement, and was so moved by this succinct thought, that I asked Thomason if I could reprint it here, to share with you.
We live in an era of great technological advancement. In today’s world, new knowledge is being generated at a rate that has never before been attained. There is always something new coming out; new computers, new iPods, new movies, new cures. I am here to tell you that the rate of advancement can only increase. We stand at the foot of a mountain of change. This will have a deep impact on our futures, all of us. To give you an example of this impact, the top 10 in demand jobs in this year, 2010, did not even exist in 2004. Six years. It only took six years. And what of our four years at St. Monica’s? In our freshman year, how many teachers had smart boards? How many phones had touch screens? How many homework assignments were posted online? And now? Every year brought little changes. These changes are going to get bigger. It is happening now. We are in the midst of it all.
So what does this mean for us? It means that the information given to us in the next 4 or 5 years of our education may well be obsolete or outdated in 10. Colleges will be attempting to prepare us for jobs that don’t even exist yet, to use technologies that have not yet been invented, and to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet. The major that you work towards in college may have nothing to do with your path in life.
So what, then, is the point? Why study science when the theories you learn will soon be “revised”? Why study English when the nature of our language and the way it is transmitted is changing so rapidly? To the parents, why pay for an education such as this? Because the real value of a college education is not the hard information memorized, but the experience, the conditioning the mind goes through; learning how to think. It has been said before, but the fact that we need to learn how to think has never been truer. The information we learn may soon be useless, but the ability to think, to invent, to innovate, is a precious gift, and will ALWAYS be in demand. We must learn how to create new knowledge, not just how to memorize old knowledge. And college is what will teach us how to do this. College is a time of growth; we must grow our minds. We must go to college, not to learn how to do a specific job in a single area of expertise, but rather, how to do any job, for the jobs of today will not be the jobs of the future. So, why study science? To learn how to solve problems. So why study English? To learn how to communicate. So, why study math, engineering, history, anything?!? To learn how to think. So go, have fun. Learn. Grow. But don’t forget to think.
