Is Commencement the Beginning or the End?

Graduation season is upon us!

And with it come traditions, celebration, and wise words of advice.

If you take a trip to Target, you’ll be greeted by balloons that say, “You did it, grad!” and decorations with messages like “The tassel was worth the hassle," or "What's, next?"

Greeting cards echo the same sentiment, with messages like “Graduation is the beginning of new beginnings.”

At the commencement ceremony, it’s tradition for a speaker to address the graduating class, offering a message of inspiration and advice for the future. Over the decades, these speeches, while each unique, have almost always shared words of wisdom on how to navigate what’s next. A few of my personal favorites are:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." - Steve Jobs

"You might as well take a chance on doing what you love." - Jim Carrey

"Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth." - Taylor Swift

“So the question is, what are you going to do with what you have? I’m not talking about how much you have. Some of you are business majors. Some of you were theologians, nurses, sociologists. Some of you have money. Some of you have patience. Some of you have kindness. Some of you have love. Some of you have the gift of long-suffering. Whatever it is, whatever your gift is, what are you going to do with what you have?" - Denzel Washington

The word “commencement” is rooted in Latin and means “to begin,” so the décor, the greeting cards, and all of the wise words we hear this time of year are incredibly fitting.

But when I think about commencement, I can’t help but reflect on something else, too.

While the ceremony marks a beginning, it also represents the end of something really special.

Yes, for traditional undergraduate students,

it marks the end of late-night dorm room chats and last-minute cramming before finals. It’s the end of Thirsty Thursdays, of “these were the best four years of my life” moments, and of a life that, for a little while, was the perfect blend of fun, challenge, and structure.

But more than that…it’s the end of something else: Time.

It is the end of a period where we have real, intentional time to invest in self-awareness… to explore, reflect, and start figuring out who you are.

Of course, that “figuring it out” journey doesn’t end when graduates walk across the stage (and I hope it never does). But it becomes much harder to prioritize when what’s next includes full-time careers, families, and the other responsibilities that begin to fill our time.

That’s why I will say again and again that the value of a college degree goes far beyond what you learned in the classroom. It’s that you were given the space and the time to begin understanding who you are and how you want to contribute your unique skills and abilities to the world around you.

This is a bold claim, but I like to think that Hilary Duff, the 2026 commencement speaker at Northeastern University, would agree. She recently said:

“Perhaps the jobs you'll have five years from now may not even exist yet, and the industries you're entering are being rewritten in real time. But don’t let the headlines scare you. What you do might change, but who you are never has to.”

Yes, this new beginning will be shaped by what graduates choose to do next. But how incredible is it that they were given the time and space to begin discovering who they are?

To me, that time is worth celebrating.

So instead of thinking of commencement as a beginning or an end, I prefer to see it as an invitation to never stop figuring it all out.

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Find one thing that brings you joy today.