A Note to Graduates

For those of you who are graduating and have yet to figure out what you’re going to do with yourselves this year or for the rest of your lives, you are in good company.  (And I'm not talking about mine, although that's also true!)

Last year, Stephen Colbert, now proudly sporting a diploma from Northwestern University, addressed the graduates with some hard-earned and slightly tardy wisdom regarding practical selection of a major (full address available here).  After explaining how his diploma box contained a ripped-off piece of legal paper saying, “See me. Dean Cathy Martin.” He goes on:

“So remember, just by graduating today on your graduation day, you are starting your career way ahead of me – be proud of that.  Because Northwestern is a school to be proud of – in academics, athletics, science, public service.  It represents humanity at its best.

And on Dillo Day, it represents humanity at its worst.

Now, for you parents, Dillo Day is a festival that started in 1972 to honor the armadillo.  That is the best explanation I can offer, I’m sorry. [Parental applause.]

Today, evidently armadillos are honored by drinking Four Loko out of a Super Soaker while dancing to the New Pornographers in a drunken mosh pit filled mostly with National Merit Finalists. [Student cheers and laughter.]

Northwestern's alumni list is truly impressive.  This university has graduated bestselling authors, Olympians, presidential candidates, Grammy winners, Peabody winners, Emmy winners, and that's just me!  And I loved, I loved my time at Northwestern.  I was a transfer student ... [transfer student cheers] ... wow ... I was a transfer student from a small all-male college in Virginia where I had been a philosophy major.  But I decided to switch to something with stronger job prospects: theater major."

There's hope!