Graduation Speech: Make Your Own Rules :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

Good evening my name is Ben Rood I would like to sh are with you something that Michael Konda once express The fastest way to succeed is to look as if youre playing by somebody elses rules, composition quietly playing by your own. I couldnt agree more. I am standing here today because for the last four years I have unknowingly followed this advice. It started my freshman year when I was in the right field place at the right time. Due to the overcrowding here at AHS the Microsoft Windows NT class was changed to an after-school class. This normally full class now had empty seats. As a freshman I did not meet the prerequisites for the NT class so I quietly slipped into i of the empty seats as a pass/ divulge student. As the year progressed I slowly moved away from the rules and took the class for a grade and as you can see it paid off with As. By the end of the year I was able to pass the Microsoft Certified Professional exam at age 14 and land a job at Microsoft. I would not have b een able to do all of this and more during my freshman year had I played by somebody elses rules. I keep to bend and break the rules both silently and blatantly. Through Microsoft I was able to participate in and manage conferences for any where from a hundred and fifty to 10,000 attendees. Interns are not generally invited to help with conferences, but I was fortunate enough to start with a manager who (looked) as if (he were) playing by somebody elses rules, while quietly playing by (his) own. In school I broke away from the crowd a little more obviously. After individual debates in English class our teacher invited us to debate the different topics as a class. One of these topics was where our new school should be located. I was the only one in my class who didnt agree with the bond being presented to the public. While I listened to the points made by my peers and the teacher I still maintained my points and did not initiate on the bandwagon. As many of you know I spend much of my time at a computer. Some would say thats because Im a computer geek. surface I may be a computer geek because I spend lots of time at the computer, but I spend it on that point because it is much easier to bend the rules of the computer than it is to bend the laws of physics.