I returned to the Colgate University campus for the Homecoming game against Dartmouth College earlier this month. Thankfully, Colgate won the game 27-24 in an exciting overtime, which made the trip all the better. I am a member of Colgate’s Class of 1981. My wife and I have had a practice of returning to the campus for Homecoming Weekend every two or three years, originally with our children, and now that they are grown, by ourselves. Thank you for making the alumni feel welcome.
Each time we return to campus, there seems to be a new building, a somewhat larger student body and slight changes in the businesses that occupy the storefronts in the town. In reputation, Colgate is always the same – a university that is selective in its admissions, academically challenging, well-rounded in its course offerings and extracurriculars, with a prestigious faculty and a sheepskin which propels graduates to rewarding futures. As a Colgate student, you are making lifetime friendships. Savor these years. When you look back on your time at Colgate decades from now, perhaps upon your own returns to the campus, you will feel in your marrow that your Colgate years are a true life blessing.
I write to share two thoughts. The first is that as life progresses beyond college, you will likely spend more time engaged in your future careers than you will spend in any other single activity, even more so than sleep, of which we all need six to seven hours daily – though less, perhaps, the night before you have a complicated research paper due at school. If you are going to spend so much time in a profession, it is important for you to be engaged in work that provides you with the fullest level of personal and professional satisfaction. Work can be particularly rewarding if it is performed in the service to others. You want a career where when you wake up in the morning, you can’t wait to get to your office because you enjoy the subject matter and challenges so much. That means finding a career that taps into your niche interests and developing that niche with time and further experience. The expertise you develop in a subject area, coupled with the wide network of people that you meet in your professional travels, lead to still further opportunities as life continues to unfold. I found my niche in life which I would not trade for any other and hope that you will each find yours with time.
How that relates to Colgate leads to the second thought: You should use this opportunity in your lives to explore different subject areas and extracurriculars in order to help you find your niche interest(s). (More than four decades after graduating with a major in political science, I still regret not taking Professor Emeritus Anthony Aveni’s course in solar system astronomy). Do not be reluctant to enroll in courses or to pursue extracurricular activities that might seem to be off of your beaten path. Now is the time to explore different subjects and activities. Colgate, to its credit and to your benefit, provides you with those opportunities. Make the most of them, as they might help you find whatever niche awaits you.
