It's been four years, at least for most graduates. Sometime in between Abbott and Zylberberg on Sunday morning, you will finally enter the world of alumni. If the diploma doesn't convince you that these four fast years have come to an end, termination of your student blitz account surely will.
Of course, much more will change than just blitz becoming regular e-mail again.
For those graduates that are leaving higher education for good to enter the working world, you won't ever have to sit through lectures by how-did-they-get-tenure professors, sit through impossible mid-terms, avoid Safety and Security minivans or tiptoe around inane College rules. You can buy as many kegs as you want -- no need to say "Farewell to Rage," as Janos Marton titled his Op-Ed on the back page of this issue.
As you are going through commencement, the three other classes surely envy you in these respects.
Then again, leaving Dartmouth -- with the College's friends, good teachers, and yes, rage -- isn't the easiest process to go through. In Dartmouth-speak, you can't NRO it.
Unfortunately those professors are replaced with bosses, S&S replaced with real police. Impossible questions on mid-terms and the equally difficult one of which dining hall to patronize will be replaced with questions of how to pay the rent or navigate through a career and life. Although kegs and taps can permit free-flowing beer, no one knows how to play pong.
So in these waning moments of your Dartmouth careers, now that the stress of finals and theses has passed, take time to reflect on the last four years and the truly special place Dartmouth and Hanover is, and the special people that reside here. What will remain with you for the rest of your life is the experiences and friendships of these relatively short four years.
With regard to friendships, even occasional D-Plan interference is easier than separation by thousands of miles and different life paths. It is these connections to Dartmouth that are more important than any accolade one receives or academic achievement one earns.
Look at the Classes of 1954 and 1979 -- included are leaders in business, politics, entertainment and science. You will someday take their place when you come back in 2029 and 2054 as the leaders of the country. While you all will lead exciting and diverse lives, remember each other and the times you had here at school. Everyone else at Dartmouth will certainly remember you.
Congratulations.
