hey guys my name is Baneesha Gill and my name is gordon skocic i want to start by acknowledging
and thanking the Snuneymuxw and Snaw-naw-as first nations for giving us the opportunity to learn on
their traditional unseated territory we also wanted to welcome chancellor sayers president
saucier board chair mclaughlin faculty graduates and distinguished guests there's a story we both
want to share with you today a story we actually didn't even know we had in common up until a few
weeks ago but from our first year at biu fresh out of high school sitting with multiple highlighters
notebooks waiting to get our grades back from our very first chemistry quiz we both failed it
i actually failed that quiz so bad that when christine took a question off and told us we
just got a bonus mark i still didn't pass the biggest learning curve coming into university
is that it is challenging it really pushed us all to our limits into unfamiliar territory from this
you might have gained a lot of bursts that perhaps weren't so nice like the first time
family and quiz the first time getting a parking ticket and anecdotally the first time attending a
friday morning lecture after night out at the student pub despite all this there were a lot
of good firsts like the first time getting a great mark on a test you studied hard for the first time
making new friends in your classes and the first time making up the stairs without feeling out of
breath it's worth acknowledging that covert had an impact on our in honor education in some way or
another those zoom lectures were really something something i personally never want to do again and
i think many of us fall into the same boat we went from being fully in person to fully online
to seeing half faces and now again into fully in person the cycle took a toll on all of us
students professors and stuff although kopit was really tough on all of us it was within these last
two years that we took courses that were more specific into what we wanted to study and this
really drove our passion and desire into what we enjoyed most from our university experience for
me i found in these last years at viu that i love the microbiological sciences and i thrive being in
lab during the online lectures i learned that i'm really good at multitasking tick tock and lectures
made a great combo but i will admit that those were the years that were the most crucial for me
in determining what the next steps in my education would be they determined what i was going to do
after i graduated there are students here today that already have a plan for their next big steps
and there are students here who also have no idea what they're doing in september and that's okay
it's never too late to find something you enjoy doing vincent van gogh didn't start painting until
he was 27 vera wang entered the fashion industry when she was 40 and viola davis was 42 when she
got her first big break we hope that these past few years of your education have helped you into
finding your passion or interest in something you enjoy doing because we're all here to do what we
love we all started out this journey differently and we're all here now graduating together
not all of us had stellar grades or scholarships or did student-based projects some of us just
waited for the days to go by the funny thing about university is we all find ourselves saying
i just need to get through this week but we end up saying that for each week until it's april and
another year has gone by the dalai lama said that to remain indifferent to the challenges we face
is indefensible if the goal is noble whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely
relevant what we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up over the years
of experiences we all know too well that being a student can be stressful through the busy school
weeks we learned to persevere over these hard times and we did not give up we all we all earned
our graduation at multiple points in our journey we were faced with the choices such as should i
use the time to cry about the assignment or should i use the time to actually do the assignment
most of us just learned how to do both at the same time in addition to that cool multitasking
trick i personally learned how valuable it is to have relationship with your peers
how much i love cell biology and how i will always struggle with organic chemistry and how maybe
organic chemistry and genetics shouldn't be in the same semester above all else i learned how much
fun vau has made this journey for me for me i have learned that throughout our educational journey
we are very resilient resilience is defined as a capacity to recover quickly from difficulties
through all the stress and hardships we have experienced in our courses we have always bounced
back and tried our hardest we have worked so hard and poured a lot of effort and care into our
studies at biu resilience is the big reason why we are here today all of us graduating today is a
testament to this we want everyone here to realize that even with all of those struggles you did it
we did it we made it past the finish line with a few pieces of our soul missing and more knowledge
primed into our brains than we ever thought possible but i think we can all agree it was worth
it at least to some degree no pun intended so to the graduating class of 2022 take the moment to
just be proud of yourself because you've earned it every single person in this room is proud of you
be it your professors peers parents guardians partners family friends and children they're all
happy thankful and proud for your achievement in graduating from biu i remember when i was in first
year and i was walking around the professor's offices in building 370. there are pictures of
former biology graduates on the walls there and i just thought to myself wow will i ever end up on
the wall will i complete this degree and graduate fast forward a few more years and here we are
we made it it is with great pleasure to say congratulations to the graduating class of 2022.
as our former evolution professor eric gruden said it's not the survival of the fittest it's
a survival of the fit enough so grads take this experience and shape it to whatever you want to be
because honestly we're just getting started congratulations to all the graduates of 2022