{"id":276,"date":"2015-05-18T06:15:11","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T06:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/?page_id=276"},"modified":"2016-02-16T07:10:42","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T11:10:42","slug":"graduation-address","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/commencement-2015\/graduation-address\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduation Address"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Graduation<\/a><\/p>\n

Good morning and welcome everyone to Middlesex County College\u2019s 48th Commencement exercises\u00a0celebrating 50 years of academic excellence. Wow. Thank you all for taking the time out of your\u00a0busy lives to be here together in this moment.<\/p>\n

Thank you to the professors, to the faculty and other professionals who have guided us here. Thank\u00a0you to our family, to our friends and other loved ones who have continuously supported us.<\/p>\n

Many of you do not know me. My name is Nicole Risoli. I am a paralegal major in the Division of\u00a0Professional Studies. I have the privilege today of being your valedictorian and a recent recipient of\u00a0the Frank M. Chambers Award. But all that I think is printed in your program. You know, the one you\u00a0keep checking to see where we are. Don\u2019t worry we\u2019re at the top of page three. But what\u2019s not\u00a0printed in there is the essence of my story: That during\u00a0my time at Middlesex, I was engaged,\u00a0married and gave birth during my final semester this past November. And\u00a0yes, that I took that long\u00a0walk from the back of parking lot 1, up that hill, sometimes I cut through Crabiel Hall, all the way to\u00a0Edison Hall weekly, with an enormous growing\u00a0belly making plenty of heads turn along the way. That\u00a0I graduated from high school 10 years ago. I actually lied to my parents in order to get out of the\u00a0ceremony and since then have attended two other colleges. And, most importantly, that I dropped\u00a0out of that\u00a0dreaded public speaking class a total of four times. Speaking terrifies me. Thank\u00a0goodness today for these large gowns and\u00a0funny, dare I say ridiculous, hats.<\/p>\n

But many of you do know me. I am a wife, a mother, a step mother, a sister, and a daughter. I hold a\u00a0full-time job\u00a0and a part-time job. I am a friend, colleague, and student. I exhibit hard work,\u00a0determination, and commitment.\u00a0You see, we are all many of these familiar things and wear many of\u00a0these different hats. The greatest things I have\u00a0learned at Middlesex have been from the diverse\u00a0community I have met. We have all proven together that no matter\u00a0what age or stage of life you are\u00a0in, or how many hats you are wearing, it is never too early or too late to invest in\u00a0your education.\u00a0Which is ultimately an investment in ourselves.<\/p>\n

I am sorry to disappoint, but I have no secrets or great message to share with you today that you\u00a0haven\u2019t heard before. Your hard work has paid\u00a0off and I commend you for your successes big or\u00a0small. The most frequently asked question of the day seems to be,\u00a0so what are your plans? What\u2019s\u00a0next? For some of us we will go on to other colleges. For some of us we will enter the workforce if\u00a0we aren\u2019t already there. But for some of us, like me, we just shrug our shoulders because we still\u00a0don\u2019t know what we\u00a0want to be when we grow up. And that\u2019s okay too. Because the truth is there is\u00a0no direct path from the seat you are sitting in today to where you are going. There are no definitive\u00a0answers. Success is what you make of it and only comes\u00a0when you embrace opportunity when you\u00a0find it. If you keep your eyes open, I assure you that opportunity will find\u00a0you. I hope you find\u00a0happiness, love, strength and courage along the way.<\/p>\n

Today we celebrate together opportunity. Today we all wear the same hat. This ridiculous graduation\u00a0hat. Wear it\u00a0proudly. Congratulations Class of 2015. We did it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning and welcome everyone to Middlesex County College\u2019s 48th Commencement exercises\u00a0celebrating 50 years of academic excellence. Wow. Thank you all for taking the time out of your\u00a0busy lives to be here together in this moment. Thank you to the professors, to the faculty and other professionals who have guided us here. Thank\u00a0you to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":268,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-276","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/276\/revisions\/446"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mccdemosite1.devsiteurl.com\/commencement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}