{"id":12532,"date":"2020-04-23T23:06:01","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T05:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=12532"},"modified":"2020-04-23T23:18:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T05:18:07","slug":"a-parents-thoughts-to-their-child-on-graduation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/a-parents-thoughts-to-their-child-on-graduation\/","title":{"rendered":"A Parents Thoughts To Their Child On Graduation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In yesterday\u2019s blog I shared that my daughter Ashley graduates from BYU tomorrow (Friday April 24th<\/sup> 2020). \u00a0I also shared the thoughts she wrote about the things she learned <\/a>from her college experience. Today I thought it fitting for me to share a parent\u2019s thoughts to a child that\u2019s graduating, so here are my thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Graduating from college is a major accomplishment in life.\nNot just for the degree you earned but for the knowledge and experience that is\nforever yours.  Your education is one of\nthe few things in this life that can never be taken away from you. It\u2019s also\none of the few things in life you will get to take with you when you pass on from\nthis life to the next.   Intelligence\ngained is yours for eternity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wish I could tell you that you\u2019ve graduated your done being\neducated, but the truth is your education is just getting started.  And now that you are done with college you\u2019re\nabout to find out that you are going to learn far more being out of the\nclassroom than you ever could in it. That\u2019s because the truest teacher of knowledge\nis hands-on experience.  The hands-on experiences\nof trying and failing, and trying and failing, and picking yourself up, dusting\nyourself off, and then trying and failing all over again, is going to teach you\nmore than you can even begin to imagine right now. It is going to be humbling,\nand challenging, and even scary at times – and I\u2019m not talking scary like\ntaking a college final was \u2013 I\u2019m talking scary like being able to pay rent and\nfeed your family and keep the lights on. Life is about to get real. So real, in\nfact, that there are going to be many times over these next years when you will\nlong for the days when an upcoming test or paper due was your biggest worry in\nlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying all that to scare you, I am saying that because it\u2019s simply the truth.\u00a0 But you, my dear, don\u2019t need to be scared of anything, because you have done your part. You have put all the work into getting your college degree and that work has prepared you to face what lies ahead.\u00a0 It\u2019s given you a foundation to build on and its provided you tools that are going to help you every step of your journey ahead. Not only that, but the connections you\u2019ve made with your professors and fellow students will prove valuable to you for years to come as your career unfolds in ways that will often surprise you. You are READY for the future!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you have accomplished in earning your degree is tremendous and I couldn\u2019t be more proud.\u00a0 But the thing I am most proud of isn\u2019t the piece of paper you\u2019ll receive tomorrow \u2013 it\u2019s the person you are. It\u2019s the light you bring into every room you enter. It\u2019s the kindness you show to strangers. It\u2019s the way you set crazy big goals and go after them fearlessly. It\u2019s the way you can make the most mundane tasks fun. It\u2019s your attention to detail (love is in the details). It\u2019s your recognition that happiness is a choice and your positive attitude about whatever life brings your way. It\u2019s your unconditional love of God and the Savior Jesus Christ and the way that reflects in your countenance and your 1000 watt smile.\u00a0 YOU are what awesome looks like!!! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow my family will hold our own little graduation ceremony for my daughter Ashley at our home. I so wish she was able to have a commencement ceremony with her classmates where she would get that glory moment of walking across the stage and being handed her diploma while the audience cheers – that’s a moment every graduate deserves to have. But we are going to do our very best to make tomorrow as special as we can for Ashley in our own little ceremony. She did let me know that since she’s the only one graduating at our ceremony that it makes her the de facto Valedictorian of the class so gets to give that speech….ya gotta love that girl! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL YOU GRADUATES! ESPECIALLY MY AMAZING DAUGHTER ASHLEY!! I LOVE YOU!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201cWhat Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In yesterday\u2019s blog I shared that my daughter Ashley graduates from BYU tomorrow (Friday April 24th 2020). \u00a0I also shared the thoughts she wrote about the things she learned from her college experience. Today I thought it fitting for me to share a parent\u2019s thoughts to a child that\u2019s graduating, so here are my thoughts: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,18668,19351,684,23438,782,13323,113,23442,722,23440,23441,216,513,529,1648,5906,81,1439,5205,23443,3360,19932,9762,23439],"class_list":["post-12532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-ashley-anderson-hill","tag-ashley-hill","tag-brigham-young-university","tag-byu-graduation","tag-charitable","tag-college-graduate","tag-education","tag-hands-on-experience-is-the-greatest-teacher","tag-humility","tag-intelligence-is-for-eternity","tag-its-the-only-thing-you-take-with-you","tag-kind","tag-knowledge","tag-loving","tag-outlook","tag-positive-attitude","tag-smile","tag-struggle","tag-the-best-is-yet-to-come","tag-the-person-you-are","tag-university","tag-what-awesome-looks-like","tag-what-lies-ahead","tag-your-education-is-just-beginning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12535,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions\/12535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}