Dear seniors: I’d like to flashback to spring of 2022. Many of us were knee-deep in finals, struggling to finish the semester. I was in a pretty intense Robotics course that had a huge end of semester project which accounted for most of our grade. The days flew by with exams and assignments and before I knew it, it was the day before the project was due. My group and I were sitting in a laboratory, surrounded by circuit boards, wires, and empty coffee cups. We had worked for hours and made minimal progress on our prototype, which needed to be functional by the following morning. When we looked at each other, our expressions all said the same thing: I don’t think we can do this, but let’s do what we can.
After ordering another round of Dunkin, we started again. We worked the rest of the day and through the night. We ended up leaving around 3 a.m. and I got at most four hours of sleep before my alarm rang. The next morning, we headed back to the lab at 8 a.m. This was it — our final run of the code before we had to present. I waited for another error, another wrong movement, another mistake. But then – it worked. We had minutes to spare, but we finally had a functioning prototype.
Wow, I thought as I stared at our robot. I can’t believe we did that. A few hours earlier, I was sure we’d never get it working in time. But even with my doubts, we had persevered.
Over the course of your time at Stevens, I’d bet everyone had at least one moment where you weren’t sure you’d make it through. Maybe it was while studying for a tricky exam. Or working in a lab, or even during Senior Design.
It might’ve been when you got sent home March of 2020. Or when you received an email stating we had another semester of online courses. You may have closed your eyes, taken a breath, and said to yourself, “I don’t know if I can do this.”
But being here, at the end of your final semester, is testament that you can do it. No matter how many times you thought you couldn’t, you proved yourself wrong again and again and again.
I’d wager that these moments of insecurity are not all behind us. In the following years (and likely the rest of our lives) we’re going to doubt ourselves, doubt our skills, or doubt our ability to handle what the world throws at us. But if you take away one thing from your time at Stevens, take away the fact that you are stronger than freshman-year-you ever would’ve thought possible. You persevered through things that, back then, we never could’ve fathomed.
Every time you look at the diploma you’re receiving in a few days, remember those times of doubt. Remember those times when you thought it wasn’t possible. And remember how you made it possible. Keep those hard-learned lessons in mind as we continue moving forward and proving ourselves wrong in the best ways.
