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Essays

Momento Mori

Sean Moore

I sent this in to Pitt’s engineering department today as part of an application to speak during graduation. I’ve decided to post it here because it really represents my sentiments that I have about graduating in less than a month, and I think a lot of readers feel the same way, too. I’m scared, petrified, not only about what I’ll be doing after I leave, but also that whatever I choose will somehow end up being the wrong choice, and I’ll end up doing some meaningless, soul-sucking job for the rest of my life because it will be the only thing I’m qualified to do. Here’s to that little voice in side of us that voices all our doubt.

-SM

For many of us at least, this will be the first time in our lives we will be jumping off a cliff of adulthood where we don’t know if or when a net will catch us. We will still have our loving family and our friends to support us to be sure, but there won’t be an entire organization surrounding us that is built around helping us succeed. It’s incredibly frightening.

But it’s also incredibly freeing. We’ve been given the tools the last four years to go out into the world and truly and remarkably make a notable impact.

Many of us will be graduating with considerable debt. And after four years of paying for the privilege to earn the great degrees we will now be departing with, there’s certainly a sense of entitlement. “Where’s my piece of the pie?” is something I’ve certainly wondered. But the great majority of us will also be graduating in less than a month with almost no commitments or responsibilities to anyone but ourselves. There are no car payments to make, no mortgages to keep up or properties to maintain, no spouses or children to support.

This window of almost no responsibilites and commitments is incredibly small – in a few years, we will have house payments to think about, or a wedding to plan, or even kids to take care of. This window, these few years, may very well be our only chance to go out in the world, try something risky, and fail big: starting a company, or a foundation, or volunteering, or anything that could change the world. And that proposition certainly scares the hell out of me, and I would imagine it scares a lot of other graduates. But what other time in our lives will the consequences for failure be so low?

I don’t want to suggest that this graduating class eschew monetary gain, because I fully understand the allure. I just want to make the point that as engineers, the money will always be in demand – the world is always in need of skilled thinkers and builders, and our graduating class certainly qualifies. I just want to make it clear that this is the time to take risks and make mistakes. If I could convince one person to open their mind and consider trying whatever crazy idea in the back of their minds that they were unsure of undertaking, I’d consider my addressing of my fellow classmates to be an outstanding success.