As the Sun starts to dip below the hills across the slope. As the chimes ring for the final time. As your hand hovers over the touchpad to turn in that last assignment. This time is different, we will not be back to do it all again next semester. We have seen the last beautiful array of dying leaves in Autumn. We hoisted up one last red cup full of liquid in the name of good ol' college fun. Alas, the Sun has set; it has set on us. We are now cast into the dustbin of history. To be remembered not by sophomoric titles such as freshmen or senior, reserved for our juniors. We are simply the Class of '25 until the next Class of '25 rolls around in a hundred years.
Our class has witnessed much over our four years here, including the end of masks and a new president. As we ready to leave this aptly described “particular chunk of hilltop,” we may be tempted to look at it with cherry blossom-tinted glasses. You have graduated from an Ivy League University; for many, you are the first to even graduate from college, for others, the first from an Ivy League. Even for those who may be fifth-generation legacies graduating, this is still something to be proud of. But I would like to take on the role of the slave who whispers in the ear of the triumphant general, “Hominem te memento,” “remember that you are man,” for a second.
There will be many congratulations and many gifts celebrating our achievements, but remember, you have done nothing. I mean this in two ways. You have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a piece of paper, many would call you a fool. But just how that paper is only a representation of you completing your studies, your graduation is merely a representation that you have started life. Too many have thought the beginning was the end, and had to learn that lesson outside the comfy walls of the university. Graduation is like getting drafted to a sports league: Sure, it is a great thing, but your whole career is ahead of you. You could be a bust, or you could be like Tom Brady.
Congratulations, you have now graduated with a Cornell degree. The only real question is, what are you going to do with it? Sure, you may make more money than most people can ever dream of, or have more houses than you have time to live in. But the life of the garbage man may be more fulfilling than yours, even if you live for a thousand years. But you heard this before, of course, you go to an Ivy League university. Some liberal arts major has already yelled at you for selling your soul to Blackrock. But that’s not the point; you can live a better life than the Peace Corps volunteer, even if you make more money than anyone has ever seen.
The second meaning of "you have done nothing:" You do not stand on your own despite what society may tell you. Countless generations of your family worked to provide for the next. We all have legacy, this is not the one that our future generations will have for Cornell. But the will and grit of past generations to continue to strive for a better future. Sadly, it seems some in our generation have lost this will and grit. But remember, as your graduation is not the end, neither are you the culmination of your family. Hopefully, you too will be one of the forgotten giants that the next generation stands on. This is what can help make your life more fulfilling because you are not when your life ends, your life continues in the next generation, and the generations after that.
But I would be remiss if I did not qualify what I meant by a fulfilling life. We stand on the shoulders of giants, but is this column of giants a tower of Babel? Continuously reaching up to the heavens to eventually collapse under the weight of its own hubris. Man is too shallow to harbor the full purpose of humanity, and no artificial harbor will do either. For the purpose of man is for whom created him, that being God. I hope through my columns, I have been able to convey that idea. I have written many times about the university, from the “Godless University” to the “True University,” but my true subject has been the people who inhabit the university, you. I write this so that it is clear for all who may come across one of my columns from my first to my last, it was written so that you may know your purpose, which is in something higher than yourself and all the earth, God. As St. Paul writes, “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.”
But alas, to paraphrase a poem by John Donne, I know for whom the chimes toll, they toll for me and thee.
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Armand Chancellor is a fourth year student in the Brooks School of Public Policy. His fortnightly column The Rostrum focuses on the interaction of politics and culture at Cornell. He can be reached at achancellor@cornellsun.com
