DailyDirt: Graduation Advice

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Thu, May 10th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Graduation season is just about here, and lots of students are going to put on some black robes and accept a very expensive piece of paper and a hand shake. And along with those newly-minted degrees, plenty of older and more experienced folks will try to offer some advice. Here are just a few interesting words of wisdom for young grads.

Paul Graham has an excellent blog post that goes beyond the usual "do what you love" advice and explains why it's so hard to actually follow through on finding enjoyable work. Graham boils it down to two paths: (1) organically finding what you love to do, or (2) working one job to support yourself while you develop other vocational interests. [url]
Conan O'Brien gave a commencement speech to Dartmouth College students in 2011. Towards the end of his talk, Conan refers back to a speech he gave to Harvard graduates in 2000 on failure. [url]
Commencement speeches aren't always written by successful people with years of experience. Here are ten pearls of wisdom that you won't hear on graduation day, and as with all advice, take it with a grain of salt. [url]
To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: advice, conan obrien, diplomas, education, graduation, paul graham, speeches, wisdom

6 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 10 May 2012 @ 6:01pm

Conan..
Why isn't Conan on Hulu? I just don't understand why Conan can only be seen on its own obscure website and TBS...
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Pixelation, 10 May 2012 @ 10:06pm

It's nice to see some great graduation advice. I'm at a bit of a loss as to how this is Tech news...

Just sayin'.
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- Michael Ho (profile), 11 May 2012 @ 1:44am
  
  Re:
  Pixelation,
  
  Good graduation advice may benefit innovation and technology..? Okay, that's a stretch, but does Techdirt have to be restricted to just Tech topics?
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  - Pixelation, 11 May 2012 @ 6:11am
    
    Re: Re:
    "...does Techdirt have to be restricted to just Tech topics?"
    
    I suppose not. Here is an idea...
    
    https://davidengler.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/the-worlds-first-commencement-address-delive red-by-twitter/
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A Guy (profile), 10 May 2012 @ 10:49pm

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/05/09/billionaires-advice-for-new-college-graduates-jo bs-oprah-zuckerberg-and-more/

I liked this one. They say that you shouldn't take advice from successful people. You should study them and copy what they do. They often don't know (or admit to themselves) why they were really successful.
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davebarnes (profile), 11 May 2012 @ 7:48am

Best commencement speaker
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/05/02/1576217/class-of-2001-sing-joyously-as.html
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