To our commencement speaker, distinguished guests, school administrators and program heads, our beloved principal and assistant principal, highly competent teachers, proud and ever-supportive parents, friends and fellow candidates, ladies and gentlemen, a pleasant afternoon and welcome to the 2018 STI senior high school commencement exercises!
Honored and a bit nervous – that is how I feel welcoming you all to this momentous occasion. As what runs in my head right now, I should have been just in the kitchen preparing my specialty dishes for everyone who has gathered here today. Yes, because as a culinary arts graduate, I believe I have more what it takes to become a successful chef over a perfectly fluent speaker you all expect.
At STI, we are given meaningful opportunities to explore our greatest potentials and inclinations. So, I have explored mine, same as well with all the seated candidates, who since early this morning, for all I know, have been wearing their sweetest smiles while their hearts have been in great joy and excitement. In my two years of stay in this academe, I can describe our senior high school life as – extremely challenging and demanding, but totally fulfilling.
True enough, our senior high has been extremely challenging and demanding with all those academic workloads and hands-on practical tasks. Apart from these, we have extra-curricular and other school activities that have complemented our academics with the learning and acquisition of indispensable soft skills, hence the communication skills I am demonstrating here. Without any doubt, I believe that these candidates waiting formal conferment as graduates have experienced and learned the same thing. That makes it totally fulfilling!
My dear fellow candidates, the time for us to reap the fruits of our hard work, perseverance, and pursuit of excellence has finally come! In the next few minutes, we will be marching up onto this very stage and will be claiming our diploma. More than a piece of paper, it will serve as our ticket to our journey towards the achievement of our goals and aspirations. Or so in the most practical sense, it will grant us admission in the college programs we have long ideated, help us land a more decent and promising job, or justify our startup of a profitable business.
In advance, I congratulate everyone – all the candidates who have just completed their programs, all parents and all who have serve as parents to the candidates for all the support and guidance, all teachers for imparting their knowledge and expertise, and others, who in their own little ways, have extended their hands and hearts in our endeavors.
Honored, and now but excited and thankful, I wish you all good luck on your new journey. Let us all live the STI way. Let us all aim higher! Once again, good afternoon and welcome to the 2018 STI senior high commencement exercises!
This is the manuscript of the short graduation welcome speech delivered by Junjun Rondina during his senior high school graduation in April 2018.