AMBASSADOR JOEY CUISIA, CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND OUR ESTEEMED GUEST SPEAKER
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
THE MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
BENEFACTORS AND SUPPORTERS OF THE UNIVERSITY
DEANS, FACULTY, AND THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
THE ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
OUR FRESH GRADUATES, ALUMNI, PARENTS
DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN
GOOD AFTERNOON.
I know your poor ears can hardly bear another dose of speech after the three that came before me. Well, be assured, I won’t allow my farewell speech to stand in the way of your celebration with your loved ones. Besides, after standing for over two hours and shaking hands with over 500 honor students and graduates combined, I cannot feel my feet anymore and, like you, I would be very eager to end the ceremonies.
Let me begin with a question.
Has it ever crossed your mind that you may end up working on a profession or running a business that is not even imagined yet at the moment?
According to the World Economic Forum held last 2018, 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in job types that don’t exist today.
Twenty years ago, a job now called human capital development officer could have been misunderstood as another term for a worker who exploits human beings for capital gain. Thirty years ago, the word “drone” refers only to male bees. Just imagine what would have come to people’s mind back then had you mentioned that your job was a drone pilot. A work climate officer now could have been misunderstood decades ago as someone hired to operate office air-conditioning units.
Well, you may be amused, but listen to some of the businesses and jobs in store for you in the future.
I checked crimsoneducation.org for the list of businesses and professions that sound odd now but will actually be needed in the future. Here are some of them:
- If you have problems discarding, recycling, or reusing trash, hire a trash engineer, who will be kept busy handling part of the 2.6 billion tons of trash generated annually.
- If in the future your father or mother will not follow medical or other health advice, hire a medical mentor, who will make sure that your parents will religiously follow the doctor’s advice and other indications to stay healthy after a procedure or a checkup. In short, you will hire a nutritionist, exercise counselor, and friend rolled into one.
- And if Mr. Elon Musk and Mr. Richard Branson get to succeed in commercializing space travel, there will be an acute shortage of commercial space pilots.
- Since smart cities and buildings will be prevalent in the future, and your refrigerator or coffee maker might refuse to obey your commands, or you might suspect that your phone lines are hacked, hire a personal internet-of-things security repair person, who will make sure that the appliances or the building will recognize your voice and follow your every command.
The rapid acceleration of globalization, digitization, immigration, and climate change has allowed these new businesses and professions to rise and many others to vanish. All these have led to an environment that is VUCA –volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Yes, this so-called 4th industrial revolution has enhanced economic prosperity but has also widened disparity for those outside or excluded from this revolution.
In UA&P, we have done our best to provide you with a solid education to thrive in the future and yet still be in sync with the serious human and societal issues.
To be honest, we are never sure how long the professional skills and knowledge you acquired in UA&P will remain relevant in the future. We have, however, given you a solid foundation—liberal education—that emphasizes how to learn rather than what to learn.
Your UA&P education will give you the necessary disposition to collaborate with others, be flexible and adaptable to disruptions, and yet remain steadfast on the unchanging principles of faith, charity, and justice. We are confident that in your work, you will be professionally competent, creative, enterprising, capable of making free and morally upright choices, zealous for the common good, and become positive agents of change in society.
If you look back on the sacrifices you and your loved ones went through just to give you the best education possible, you will come to realize that education is a gift that you should be thankful for. Gratefulness makes us aware of all our life’s blessings, big and small. It humbles us and reminds us of our responsibility to others.
UA&P Dragons, always foster the virtue of gratitude so that your inner peace and joy overflow and the persons close to you benefit from them. This overflowing peace and joy manifested by your spirit of service will bring about the positive change we want to see, first, within ourselves, and then among the people close to us, and in the society in which we live.
Let us be wary of the sense of entitlement that has pervaded the current generation. It fills the heart with so much emptiness that it leaves no room for others. Such a disposition suppresses people, relationships, and communities. We need to immediately reject this selfish tendency when we notice it growing within us.
Gratefulness should drive the practice of your professions, whether at home or in the office, to improve the lives of the people around you. Only then will you find the true meaning of your UA&P degree. Push aside the embers of indifference and fire up your spirit of service. Disrupt the world for the good and significantly contribute to human progress. Do everything you can to uplift the moral, cultural, and material level of our beloved nation and the Asia Pacific region.
Congratulations and Godspeed.
Unitas!#
Graduation Rites 2019. Banner photo by Andres Jasso on Unsplash.
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