top of page

Misfit University's 2015 Commencement Speaker:

Evelyn Francis

 

Misfit University is honored to present Evelyn Francis as our distinguished 2015 Commencement Speaker. Evelyn has overcome and achieved greatly. This talented young lady dropped out of high school this past January, after years of bullying. Evelyn then became Misfit University's (www.misfituniversity.com) featured blogger while working and studying hard for her GED. This bright young woman passed, graduated last week and is now heading to college a year early. Evelyn represents and embraces everything our MISFIT STRONG Movement represents: finding the courage to celebrate what makes you different and taking a stand against bullying.  Evelyn, thank you for being ‪#‎MisfitStrong‬ and showing us how to ‪#‎LiveKind‬. LOOK what you have done--You did this! You make us ‪#‎MisfitProud‬.

Evelyn's Speech:

 

A ten letter word that someone came up with to name the celebration of finishing high school or college; where we don caps and gowns; where we walk across a stage in front of people we’ve known our entire lives to receive something we’ve worked so very hard for; where we can finally say, “We did it.” 

We spend thirteen years in learning so we can graduate from high school. In thirteen years, we learned to read. We learned to write. We learned about the history of the world. We learned how to do linear equations. We learned to speak other languages. We learned the water cycle. We learned the periodic table of elements. We learned a lot. We spend thirteen years learning. We spent thirteen years learning academics to prepare us in life for the knowledge we will need to better understand the world around us. But it’s not all we learned. We learned about ourselves, about who we want to be, who we can be. We learned the power of friendships. We learned how to deal with let downs, with heart breaks, with stress. We learned to appreciate the people around us who, although sometimes hard on us, truly care. Thirteen years have come and passed, and now here we are. So congratulations to us; we did it. Despite how many times we thought we couldn’t pass a test, how many times we stayed up all night studying, how many times we dreaded our teachers or classes, we made it through. That’s something to be proud of. 

I saw someone’s senior quote the other day that said, “I spent thirteen years of my life to get a piece of paper.” And it’s true. We get a piece of paper. Someone’s bound to lose it or rip it or throw it away by accident. It’s a piece of paper. But there’s something so much more to it, something we can’t put on a piece of paper, something we can’t frame and put on our wall, something we can’t lose or rip or throw away; our accomplishments, our memories, and our pride to have come so far in life, to do so much. 

Our accomplishments have been abundant in the past near decade and a half. We got A’s and we got B’s, we brought F’s up to C’s. We passed sometimes and we failed others, but we continued on. We continued on so much that we’re surrounded by that kid from math class, that kid from social studies, our friends and our families, all at once to celebrate ourselves. Our accomplishments are some that we can’t put on a piece of paper. Our accomplishments are some that we can’t explain to others. Our accomplishments are ours. Our memories are those that make us laugh, that make us cry, that make us miss those times. Homecoming and prom, football games and spirit week. They’ve all come and passed, but we’ll never forget them, truly. They’ve been our childhood, our adolescence. They’ve taught us lessons that we really can’t unlearn. 

We’ll never forget that time we went to our first dance or that time we won our homecoming game. We’ll never forget the friends that we made. We’ll never forget the times we got back our test scores and were relieved. Our memories can’t be put on paper. They can’t be given to us as we walk across a stage toward our principals and school board officials. They’re our own, and we get to keep those even closer to us than paper ever could be. The paper, however, is symbolic. It shows how much we’ve done, how far we’ve come. It shows that, really, no matter what hard times we went through, what good times we had, we kept going. It’s something to look at proudly. Something to hold with pride. It is for us. We did this. 

So thirteen years have prepared us for this moment. Maybe some of us our hoping we don’t trip, or some of us our sweating in our gowns. Maybe some of us are nervous, some of us just want some food. We’re all here, and we’re together. We started this journey together, and we’re ending it that way. Graduation is a ten letter word that someone came up with to name the celebration of finishing high school or college; where we don caps and gowns; where we walk across a stage in front of people we’ve known our entire lives to receive something we’ve worked so very hard for; where we can finally say, “We did it.” So hold your head up high, grab that piece of paper, move your tassel to the left, and say you’ve done it.

bottom of page