Editorial - May 2003

Graduation is just a beginning

Published May 23, 2003

Hundreds of Lincoln County students will don cap and gown this weekend for the landmark event in the second decade of life. Lincolnton High, West Lincoln and East Lincoln high schools all hold graduation exercises this weekend.

But for all the pomp and circumstance of this third high school graduation of the 21st Century, it is seen today as more of a beginning than an end. A high school education used to be adequate preparation for the many who found jobs in the manufacturing sector. But today, unless a person has a special, inborn talent in some career field, more specialized training is usually needed. This can be accomplished through enrollment at some excellent universities in North Carolina and elsewhere. For those for those who don’t have the money, inclination, or academic background for a Duke or UNC education, our community colleges offer qualified instruction in many areas.

Graduating seniors will hear inspirational messages from their valedictorians and encouraging messages from friends, family and relatives on this important occasion. Here’s some advice to add to all of that wisdom: make a road map. Don’t leave things to fate. We see too many young people today moving aimlessly from one job to another without the first notion of a direction.

Today’s workplace is not easy to fathom. There are so many choices, so many new jobs that may or may not be around next year. Job announcements are seductive and often misleading.

Family and friends can help in this process but the final decision has to come from the heart: What is it that stirs the spirit?

Don’t go into nursing if it makes you sick to the stomach to see someone in pain. Don’t enter the world of banking and finance if math was your worst subject. If you are good with computers, do consider jobs that foster those skills. What’s important is that the career road is one you will enjoy traveling. Like Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “To thine ownself be true and it must follow, as the night the day, thou can not then be false to any man.”

While charting this road map, keep in mind the goals and visions of those people close to you who make you proud when you reflect on their lives — maybe a grandfather, an aunt, or maybe a high school teacher. Their road probably went well beyond a mission of self-fulfillment

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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