Attending a university graduation ceremony is a proud moment for the grandaunts and their parents who have supported their child for the past three, four or five years as they completed their chosen degree. The work put in to achieving a degree means walking into a successful career, job prospects that a non-graduate could have or a life changing experience at the very least. The ceremony should celebrate the achievements of the attendees, and well chosen keynote speakers are one of the best ways that this can be done.
Now this may sound like snobbery, but I do not believe that a keynote speaker should be invited to speak at a graduation ceremony if they have not experienced the same academic life as those receiving their degree. Without knowing what it is like to be at university, keynote speakers cannot relate to their audience because life at university is completely different to life when you choose to go into a job straight from leaving school.
There is an independence that comes with university. You often move far from home with no one that you know, have to budget your loan and get a part time job on top of your studies to help with living costs and deal with people that you might not get along with. If you choose to stay at home and get a job you do not have to deal with these kind of things.
For most people who go into work after school, they live with their parents for a number of months if not years, they choose friends to move in with when they do decide to leave home, and the security of a job contract leaves less financial worries than when you rely on student loans and part time work. Because unlike the many preconceptions about university students, the majority do not have financial help from their parents, they do it by themselves.
And so when graduation ceremonies are being planned, the keynote speakers should be chosen on their experiences, including attending university themselves. Otherwise their audience will be given a speech that has not resonance with their own lives for the past three years.
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