Hard Work = Success!

I know this is a bit late, but what can ya do? I work too much and you can’t blame me for being a Canadian and wanting to enjoy the sun while it’s here so briefly.

So, I finally officially graduated from my two-year Multimedia Design and Production Technician diploma program at Humber College. Finally! It has been an intense 2 years! I pushed myself farther than I thought possible and came out the other side at the top of my class. I received the Award for Academic Excellence on graduation day (June 22, 2011) along with my diploma.

There’s something that really struck me, though, during the ceremony. Honourary degree recipient Mia Pearson gave an insightful speech to all of us graduates. She had once been told that if she struck out on her own away from the shelter of the company she was working for to form her own business, she would never make it. Today, she is considered on of Canada’s most powerful women.

It kind of reminded me of how I’ve been warned on several occasions that I wouldn’t make it either.

There aren’t many people in my immediate family who were able to make it to post-secondary education right out of high school. Mostly this was because of finances, but I sometimes wonder if my parents had hoped that my sister and I would be scholarship material and have our educations paid for by somebody else. Haha. With that in mind, I remember participating in 3 sports a year (cross country, volleyball and track and field) in junior high, and my parents scorning me for taking on a fourth (rugby) when I got to high school. “Your marks are going to suffer,” they warned.

I graduated from high school with an 85% average, thank you very much.

In my final year of high school, I approached my volleyball coach for words of encouragement because I was nervous about making it onto the Seneca College varsity team the next year. I didn’t get what I wanted. She basically told me not to get my hopes up because the level of competition is much higher and with my skill level I might be disappointed.

I made it on the team that fall and during my four years on the team and lots of intense training, we won two bronze medals and in my final year, I was nominated co-captain of the team and regional all-star for my position as libero. Take that high school coach!

During my final year in Graphic Design at Seneca, we learned a bit of web design. I clearly wasn’t understanding how to take my design skills out of the print environment and apply them to the web, so I went to my teacher for some guidance and he told me, “There are people who can design, and then there are people who can’t.” He put emphasis on the “people who can’t” implying I belonged to that category.

As I mentioned, after two years of pushing myself to the limit, I received an Academic Award of Excellence in the Multimedia Design and Production Technician program at Humber (which is a really long-winded way of saying “web design with some video stuff”) for having the highest honours average in the program. Clearly, my 94.5% average means I did something right. I can too design!

Going back to high school, I remember my parents being “displeased” that I took three art classes in my final year. (That was, like, half of my whole curriculum!) They warned me that art won’t get me a job. My dad was a musician, he should know.

Well, Mom and Dad, it only took three weeks for me to get hired out of school this time. I haven’t got a clue what to expect in the next few years career-wise, but I do know that no matter what, I will work my butt off as I always have. And I will succeed.

To finish off, here’s another inspirational (and hilarious) graduation speech by Conan O’Brien to the 2011 graduating class of Dartmouth College.

In it he says, “Nietzsche famously said, ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ What he failed to stress is that it almost kills you!”

If you're not dead, persist.