SUNY Potsdam

Sam McCaffrey '12 - SGA President
Sunday, May 20, 2012

Good morning. As they said, my name is Sam McCaffrey and for the last year I have had the honor of serving as your Student Government President. By virtue of this office, I was asked to address you today.

But enough about me, we must remember why we are gathered here today. Our friends and families are here to acknowledge our hard work and the accomplishment of earning an undergraduate degree. Those of us who are graduating today are here to stall the inevitable job search or work of grad school by another few hours!

But seriously, the all-nighters, the early mornings, and the small fortune we spent on energy drinks have all led to this moment. We have succeeded and we should be proud. I know I am proud, and I am proud of everyone graduating today. I know that after we, being Potsdam Bears, are done hibernating until the job market turns around will become the leaders, the decision makers, and the success stories that we have proven ourselves capable of being.

However, in that next chapter of our lives, we may not find ourselves critiquing Marx’s economics, or analyzing Shakespeare’s sonnets, or even experiencing the joys of calculus. But that doesn’t matter. The skills that we have learned and refined here at Potsdam will surely serve us well in our future endeavors, like jeopardy.

Beyond what we have learned in the classroom, it’s those things we didn’t get academic credit for that have made some of the most lasting impacts on us. In our time here wehave experienced living with complete strangers, to meeting our best friends. On theweekends we have climbed mountains or took advantage of those downtown attractions.On the weekdays we enjoyed the bliss of a Dexter’s sandwich and on the way throughthe quad pondered what exactly that sculpture of a man reading a book is doing there.Really, why?

These memories while being some of our happiest times will serve us as a foundationfor our adult lives. We know now that coffee is the true fuel that our nation functions on,not oil. We know that there are no better times than those with friends. And mostimportantly we know that comic sans is never appropriate.

But these great times are not the product of our own work. So I must sincerely thank ourprofessors for helping us grow as thinkers. Thank our friends for helping us survive.Thank our families, for supporting us the whole way- and for not making us feel guiltywhen we move back in with you into the foreseeable future. Lastly, Congratulations to the Class of 2012. We did it!

So good day! Good Luck! And see you on Linkedin!