After a number of years studying at university, when you attend your graduation ceremony both the graduates and their parents will be full of pride. The work put in to achieving a degree means walking into a successful career, job prospects that a non-graduate could have or a life changing experience at the very least. The keynote speakers that are chosen to talk at the event should thus be chosen to reflect this achievement.

Whilst I fully support those people who decide not to go to university, choosing a keynote speaker who has not experienced a university life is sheer foolishness on the part of graduation organisers. Without knowing what it is like to be at university, keynote speakers cannot relate to their audience because life at university is completely different to life when you choose to go into a job straight from leaving school.

You become a more independent person faster when you go to university. You are faced with situation where you might be forced to live with people you do not get along with, you have to make new sets of friends and you have to be financially organised to be able to budget your loan or get a part time job to help with living costs. These are things that you do not deal with when you stay at home.

For most people who go into work after school, they live with their parents for a number of months if not years, they choose friends to move in with when they do decide to leave home, and the security of a job contract leaves less financial worries than when you rely on student loans and part time work. And contrary to most people’s beliefs, those who do go to university mostly pay for the experience themselves by getting a part time job. Working through the holidays and paying of their loan once they have left.

And so when graduation ceremonies are being planned, the keynote speakers should be chosen on their experiences, including attending university themselves. Otherwise their audience will be given a speech that has not resonance with their own lives for the past three years.

Graduation ceremonies at university are very proud moments for those receiving their degree and the parents or friends who accompany them. What that works means could be a new career with bright prospects, an opportunity to get into a job that would never have been possible had they not held a degree, or simply a life changing experience that widens your social horizons and life’s possibilities. The keynote speakers that are chosen to talk at the event should thus be chosen to reflect this achievement.

Now this may sound like snobbery, but I do not believe that a keynote speaker should be invited to speak at a graduation ceremony if they have not experienced the same academic life as those receiving their degree. Going straight into a job after leaving school is a life completely different than if you choose to go to university for three or four years, and keynote speakers will not be able to relate with their audience if they have not gone through the same experiences.

There is an independence that comes with university. You often move far from home with no one that you know, have to budget your loan and get a part time job on top of your studies to help with living costs and deal with people that you might not get along with. These are things that you do not deal with when you stay at home.

When working straight out of school you often live with your parents for a few months or even years until you are earning enough to pay for rent, you choose your flatmates when you do move, and so long as you are earning a big enough wage, you do not have the financial worries of students at university. Because unlike the many preconceptions about university students, the majority do not have financial help from their parents, they do it by themselves.

So when it comes to the time when graduation organisers are planning the day, the keynote speakers should be checked to see if they have been to university. If they have not been they will not be able to give a speech that targets their audience.