For students who have spent the past four years overloading on advanced classes and extra curricular activities, Great Neck South High graduates expressed a readiness to slow down and appreciate the now at their graduation ceremony last Thursday at the Tilles Center in Brookville.
“We are merciless under the dictatorship of time. So how do we slow down this rush of time and maintain some control?” co-valedictorian Sherry Yang asked her classmates.
In the midst of SAT prep, sports, music lessons, and internships, Yang said, the students sometimes have not been able to fully enjoy moments with their loved ones.
“Great Neck produces high achieving students through our rigorous school system — there’s no doubt about it,” she said. “But this competitive learning environment is a dual-edged sword. We, as students, are so worried about the future that we often forget to live in the now.”
Yang, who will be attending Duke University in the fall, urged her fellow graduates to “press pause, and fight against the tyranny of time.”
Co-valedictorian Casey Li, who plans to attend Princeton University, was on the same page as Yang. She spoke of finding happiness along the way, rather than just within the goals the students set out to achieve.
“Sometimes, the things we give our entire lives trying to obtain are right in front of us,” she said. “We say that if we can just get into college, if we can just get a good job — if we can just reach our next goal, reach the next step, that we’ll finally be happy with where we are.”
But, several speakers said, slowing down does not mean lessening efforts for the high-achieving graduating class of 2015.
“When the hour glass of our lives has become empty, will we be able to say we stuck with it to the grueling end to victory?” co-salutatorian Hamsavardhaan Pillai asked his classmates. “That choice is up to us.”
Co-salutatorian Jay Zussman, who will attend Duke University along with Pillai and Yang, also encouraged students to continue fighting for success.
“When the word impossible is always seen no matter how hard we squeeze our eyes shut, when getting out of bed is a marathon and ‘I’m okay’ is the dirtiest lie we’ve ever told — despite all the stands in our way, we each have unique reservoirs of support that help us expand our horizons and reach new heights,” Zussman said.
Student speaker Christine An was confident in her classmates’ abilities to reach those new heights and excel in a college environment.
“I believe that it is not us that aren’t prepared for college, but college who isn’t prepared for us,” she told the graduates. “We are future history makers, paving new paths in our prospective fields and making, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, footprints in the sands of time. “
The graduation also included two musical presentations.
The graduating members of the band and orchestra played “Tico-Tico no Fubá,” and the choral students sang “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” following the honoring of South High’s retiring faculty.
“When you can, make things happen,” South High principal Susan Elliott told her students. “Make yes your default position.”
Elliott advised them to live their own lives, making their own decisions, choices, and mistakes.
After Elliot spoke, economics teacher Dennis Mooney awarded the 300 graduating students with their diplomas.
But before they threw their caps into the air, Yang offered them some final words of advice.
“Let us cherish life’s little treasures,” she said. “Because maybe‚ just maybe — the human race isn’t a race at all.”
