Graduation Speakers

This is the season of graduation speeches. I do not remember mine, and I went to a few. However I do remember that whatever they said was both useless and a waste of time. Graduation has different meanings to different people. For many it is just another occasion for acting out their childhood fantasy of wearing little or nothing, shaming their parents, or demonstrating their sense of individuality as a group, somewhat a conflict of terms to say the least. But the speaker is chosen by some "select" and "august" body to reflect the class and as usual in academic circles they generally are well of the mark.

The poor parents who often have contributed substantially are forced to sit through some useless pontification of some self absorbed speaker who knows less than their children who may now possess a college degree but themselves may be less than functional in society. If perhaps they had just learned how to be a good electrician then perhaps they could contribute, but fine arts just does not have a great calling.

Now to the value of this education. There has been more recent talk about the bubble of higher education, the fact that a $250,000 bill for a degree in anthropology may have little merit, then add an MBA from some second rank school say like Dartmouth and what you have is an unemployed disenchanted and generally still uneducated and nonproductive member of society. Better be a carpenter! There is a demand for good carpenters. Investment bankers use them all the time to upgrade their mansions and unbeknownst to the bankers they get paid well.

So in this season of Graduation speakers who bring nothing to the table and to students with degrees that have no value and to Universities who charge more for a degree than a home in the Hamptons, I can only say that the Chinese now produce more engineers that the US and Europe combined. And an IIT grad still outdoes almost all US grads! And none of them have the mill stone or graduation speakers!