Riley Ofrecio '24 Commencement Speech
Before I get into my speech I just wanted to say that I’m so beyond grateful to be here on this stage. I invited my family here this weekend to participate in commencement activities. One thing they weren’t expecting, however, was to see me up here. For the last month or so, I’ve kept this little secret of being the Commencement Speaker, so little do you all know you were all part of a bit of a surprise today. I just wanted to extend my thanks and graciousness to them. I’m a first-generation college student, and being able to tell my parents how thankful I am for them, like this, is something I never thought I’d be able to do. I would have never stepped foot on this stage, let alone walk across it without them. So, thank you.
4 years, some of us longer, some of us shorter. But for me, it’s the last 4 years I’ve spent at the University of Puget Sound that have been some of the most intense of my life. When I started my time here at UPS, as I’m sure many of us felt on the little zoom boxes on our computers, I felt lost. Then, getting on campus I started comparing myself to others, my peers sitting here in front of me, and felt that there was no way I was going to be able to catch up.
I placed this blame on myself. Did I overestimate what it took to go to college? Did I fail to see how COVID affected me mentally? I mean, my graduating class in high school was 70 people, so this is definitely upping the ante here a little bit. Not to sound like a broken record, but to have graduated high school and entered college during a twin-pandemic, a world full of the unknowns of COVID and the turmoils of racial injustice, shows how dedicated this cohort was to making it through and defying the odds.
We were getting that diploma, even if it meant consistent COVID testing in a pop-up tent on the event lawn and talking to our professors through giant plexiglass walls. We all came in with resilience. But, UPS is what helped us strengthen it. This is a unique position that our graduating class holds. UPS has allowed us to not back down from our difficulties. Instead using those experiences to inform our future. We’ve moved through University with what seems like a million different things coming our way; but, we’ve never let that stop us.
Where nostalgia is lone sentimental feelings of past happiness, remembrance is acting while considering memory. Nostalgia, while good in theory, can negatively affect your reality. Remembrance, although sometimes challenging, can show persistence and positive progress towards the future. Being able to act with remembrance, reflecting on the past when questioning how we move forward in the future, is an essential strength of someone who has taken in all aspects of learning.
After graduating high school, I remember reflecting on all the little awards and accolades I received. The months before starting here, I felt on top of the world. The positive nostalgia I had for the moments of recognition that positioned me well in high school did not prepare me for the reality of coming to a university, a place where my peers would have the same resume as me. I had created a false sense of confidence in myself. And once I started school, I felt like I fell hard. I questioned, was I properly prepared in high school to be somewhere like the University of Puget Sound?
There were moments in my first couple of semesters here when I felt like I was just floating, where I felt the imposter syndrome deep within myself. I doubt that I was the only person here who felt like everything I had learned before stepping foot on this campus left me stranded. However, in time, UPS helped me understand that those experiences that led me here are the most important parts of my positionality and my identity as a student.
I want to shout out my faculty and peers in the African American Studies department. This department helped me during some of my deepest moments of self-doubt. When I reflect over the past couple of years, it was my AFAM classes every semester that pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was there I learned I had what it took to be here. I’ve learned that experience is not expertise, but experience can help in your journey to expertise. It was in those weirdly warm classrooms in Howarth where I learned that my experiences in life, my memories, whether good or bad, can positively impact my journey in learning. The struggles that I faced in my small hometown are not moments to hold me back, but rather moments that I can use to push myself forward. Nobody else here has the lived experience that you have, to be here, in this moment, and we must appreciate that distinction.
There will be moments when we feel ill-prepared for what’s coming next. In these moments of questioning, know that you can always refer back to what came before.
Every moment is a learning moment.
My cohort, here in front of me, is about to close a major chapter of life, but that doesn’t mean you need to forget it. Don’t let the nostalgia of the past hold you back from reaching something great, but don’t discount what you’ve experienced up until now as simple memories. There is power in the persistence of remembrance. Use those memories to build resilience and push yourself into new dynamic dreams; if UPS has only taught us one thing, it’s to remember to live "to the heights.”
Thank you.
