Kerry DoughertyJUNE IS HERE. Mortarboard month. The one time of year when it's acceptable to buttonhole young people and shower them with unsolicited advice.
Graduates should turn off their iPods, cease text messaging and pretend to listen.
In less than a week, my oldest kid will don a cap and gown and say goodbye to high school. I'm worried. She leaves for college in August, which means I'm running out of time to dump a life's worth of experience on her.
Here, in no particular order, is some of what I'll tell her. Among thousands of commencement addresses and graduation columns, what's one more? Feel free to share with your graduate.
Whatever you do in college, don't sleep through your 8 o'clock classes. Or your 10 o'clocks. Or your 2 o'clocks.
Here's a thought: Go to all of your classes. They're costing us a fortune.
Do not wait until the night before it's due to read all of "Swann's Way" and write a paper on Proust.
Do not come home from college every weekend with your dirty laundry.
Do not use bleach with colors.
Remember that the traditional definition of "weekend" is Friday night to Monday morning, not Thursday through Tuesday.
Think about spending Spring Break doing good rather than going wild.
Never substitute an emery board for ChapS tick. I mean it. Never file your lips. No matter how chapped they are. Trust me.
Never ever eat an entire jar of chewable vitamin C's because you feel a cold coming on and you can't afford to be sick. There are worse things than colds.
Once you're 21, don't drink champagne in a hot tub. (Especially your uncle's hot tub, which is 5 degrees warmer than everyone else's. If you do drink in there, get out after 20 minutes. Do not linger for two hours. No matter how good it feels at the time.)
Do not go on the cabbage diet.
Do not elope.
Drive the speed limit. Especially when you're in a hurry.
Be generous when you tip. Remember that you're descended from waitresses.
Do not pour a cup of water from the balcony of a room on the 21st floor of a hotel. Especially in another country where the laws are different from ours.
Do not board an international flight without your passport. Or driver's license. It's darn hard to talk your way through immigration with just an envelope with your name on it. Trust me.
Do not wait until the last day of the month to get your car inspected.
Don't wait until you run out of checks to order more.
Don't be tempted to write a check today, knowing you get paid tomorrow.
Be careful with credit cards. They're bigger than you are.
Do not hike up and down the Grand Canyon in a single day. Especially in July. Especially without socks. Or water.
Never take a shortcut over something labeled "waterfalls" in a canoe race.
Don't write a letter in anger. If you do, tear it up. Same goes for e-mails. And text messages. Delete them.
Never walk by a beggar without giving him something.
Don't forget to call your mom. No matter where you go. Especially when you need advice.
Kerry Dougherty, (757) 446-2306, kerry.dougherty@cox.net
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Major in something useful
You forgot one, Kerry - major in something that will help you get a good enough job to support yourself, not something that will help you cruise through with a lot of A's but is otherwise worthless, like Women's Studies or Afro-American studies. And unless you plan to pay for your own Master's degree or Ph.D., forget about psychology, English, or history, since a bachelor's degree in any of those subjects is worthless in the job market.
and
Kerry, do you really expect us you'd actually walk by a beggar, let alone give them money? Remember the stereotyping about the guy in 7/11 that offered YOU change? Oh and to the one commenter, in this day and age, no also means no, no matter how cute SHE is.
Remember
Don't ever drink(when you're of age)to impress someone else and please insist that NO means just that, I don't care how cute he is!
Common sense
If her daughter hasn't learned 99% of Kerri's "advise," I don't think she's college material in the first place.
Quarters
Start rolling quarters now to take with you. If you don't take dirty laundry home you will need them. Lots of them.
This is a great list!
http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/workplay_balance_at_mit/50_things.shtml
Read through the list on the above link -- great advice for anyone starting college anywhere!
Advice
Yep, and the same kind of advice and opinions you get from Kerry's article. If she doesn't like your comment or doesn't agree with you, trust me you comment will be deleted or blocked. This might get posted, but will also probably be deleted.