Graduation 2023: Be Travelers, Not Tourists

As is so often the case, the most memorable and poignant words spoken from the podium at Graduation for the Class of 2023 were those of our student speakers, Valedictorian Seth Mayhue, Salutatorian Matthew Lobo, and elected speaker and Class President Vivian Todora. It is worth seeing their messages delivered, along with those of student-elected faculty speaker Andrew Thomas. The entire event is recorded and available on FWCD’s YouTube Channel. 

My own charge for the Class of 2023 was to be Travelers, not Tourists, through college and beyond. As I told them that Friday night:

“I learned from a travel program I first led high schoolers on in 1984 that the traveler and the tourist look at the same muddy puddle on the road in front of them in two very different ways.

“The tourist wants to avoid the mud, so they navigate around the puddles. The traveler, on the other hand, sees the muddy puddle as an opportunity to get dirty in the stuff of real life: They jump in and worry about cleaning up later. On these trips to Spain that I co-led as a 20 and 21-year-old, the tourists wanted to go to McDonald’s for dinner; the travelers wanted to try the sketchy-looking mom-and-pop neighborhood diner in Granada. The tourists wanted to take an exclusive bus from one venue to the next; the travelers wanted to try out the subway in Madrid. 

“Wanting you to be TRAVELERS, not tourists, I hope that, when you come across the muddy puddles of college and life after college, I hope you will jump in and get dirty.”