Yesterday, graduating Stevens students took part in the Wittpenn Walk, a long-standing sendoff-type event leading up to Commencement later in May. Since Wittpenn Walk was a construction zone when the class of 2023 started at Stevens, most of us did not have the first-year experience of walking down this pathway, as many classes before have done. But nonetheless, it was a nice way to celebrate the upcoming Commencement in a place central to the Stevens campus (Commencement itself will be at various off-site locations in Newark).
What has struck me at these types of events over the past year has been their combination of tradition and change. Several classes of Stevens students took part in similar or even very same events happening for another year now. And yet, our experiences as the Class of 2023 are profoundly different from the Class of 1923, or even the Class of 2013.
It is important to find a balance between tradition and change in life as a whole. Having no traditions at all would lead to complete chaos, which, if you’ve read some of my For Math’s Sake columns this past year, you’ll know is incredibly hard to deal with! But clinging to a rigid set of traditions or routines leads to a stagnancy that only change can combat.
My fellow seniors and I will soon be in a world where we’ll have to get used to new traditions, and also initiate or adapt to lots of changes. For one, our daily routines will likely look vastly different, either having nine-to-five jobs with the evenings free, adjusting to graduate coursework, or finding new hobbies and activities to do in our free time. The workplaces and communities we find will have their own set of traditions, while also trying to adapt to new advancements or setbacks.
We have seen much change over the past four years, and it seems like the world is changing ever more rapidly as we prepare to enter it. This increasing unpredictability can make things start to seem like one huge game where the rules are stacked against us.
It is very tempting to cling to traditions and routine at these moments, but what has been beautiful about my time at Stevens is seeing how excited people are to embrace and lead change. The questions that we ask in class, the problems we solve in projects, and the impacts we make on campus life — all have come from a desire to change rather than stay the same. This is something that I’m confident my class, and future Stevens classes, will continue in the future.
So, as Commencement approaches, I feel happy knowing that, even with these traditions in place to provide us some comfort and consistency, we are still unafraid to go out and make a change. And for the people in future classes whose Commencement is still a ways away, keep up the good work in making changes here. At the end of it all, you’ll have people cheering you on at Wittpenn Walk and the other traditions, reminding you that hard work deserves its due amount of celebration and comfort.
