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Graduation quotes for the new generation

It's time to stop using "The Graduate." Here are some cultural references that college kids can relate to

By Drew Grant

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Charline Tetiyevsky / CC BY 3.0

Speeches are boring. "Fight Club" quotes are not.

It's nearly the end of May, and across the country thousands of fresh-faced 20-somethings will be entering the workplace after years of toiling away at collegiate studies. I recently went to a commencement address for a family member and heard not one but two references to Dr. Seuss' "Oh the Places You'll Go!" In the same speech.

Sandwiched between these words of wisdom -- taken from a book designed for babies -- was the obligatory non sequitur from some faculty member attempting to explain why the advice of "Plastics" was so funny in the "The Graduate." Maybe it would have been less irritating if these weren't the exact same two quotes I was preached when accepting my diploma. Isn't it about time we threw out these two clichéd references and updated them with some more applicable cultural dialogue?

This is why I've started peppering my commencement addresses with more "hip" movie lines to appeal to a younger audience. In case anyone wants to hire me to talk at next year's graduation, I have my list ready:*

1. Hello, class of 2012! As you embark on this next phase of your life, I want to say just one word to you. Just one word: "Rango."

2. (Point to someone in the audience, preferably in front row.) ''The leads are weak?' The fucking leads are weak?!?! You're weak. What's my name? I drove an eighty thousand dollar BMW. That's my name." Guys, this may sound harsh, but this is exactly what your first boss will sound like, especially if he's played by Alec Baldwin.

3. When in doubt, always remember the gospel of Matt Damon as he told off that douchey guy in a Harvard bar:

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"In 50 years you're going start doing some thinking on your own and you're going to come up with the fact that there are two certainties in life: one, don't do that, and two, you dropped 150 grand on a fucking education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library."

(If this does not go over well, go to a backup "Good Will Hunting" quote: "How do you like dem apples?")

4. In Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network," we are told a million dollars "isn't cool." It is followed up by the statement that what is actually cool is a billion dollars. I think that's something we can all agree is a sound life philosophy! (Pause for laughter.)

But also? How crazy is it that Mark Zuckerberg didn't even finish college? Turns out he didn't even need a degree to make those "cool" billions!

Anywhoozle, good luck with those student loans.

5. A young man named Peter Parker was once told, "With great power comes great responsibility." Well, the good news here is that as far as I know, not one student graduating today has been bit by a radioactive spider and subsequently turned into a superhero. So relax: as far as that 'personal responsibility' thing goes, it will most likely never come up in real life situations. I speak from experience.

6. In closing I say to you, graduates of Arizona State: "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile." That's from Chuck Palahniuk's "Fight Club," and that's the real world people, so get used to it.

Also, it's a great film. Netflix it sometime.

*I also do Bar Mitzvahs.

• Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More: Drew Grant

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The Post-College Job Hunt

Members of the class of 2011 are facing an anemic job market as the national unemployment rate hovers around 9 percent. Here are some of the ways graduating seniors are getting a leg up:

* Applying at places they happen to walk by and get a good feeling about
* Getting the phone numbers of the 500 biggest companies in the United States; calling them and screaming, "ARE YOU HIRING?"
* Practicing handshake with boss doll at home
* Packaging resumé with a free iTunes download
* Lurking at Chinese lunch buffet to find out what people with jobs talk about
* Putting up "Josh Needs Work" fliers in their area and expecting support, not laughter, you guys
* Googling "How to get a job"
* Comping extra slice of cheese on sandwich of anyone who looks as if they might be hiring

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New College Graduates To Be Cryogenically Frozen Until Job Market Improves


WASHINGTON—In a bold new measure intended to address unemployment among young professionals, lawmakers from across the political spectrum agreed on legislation Tuesday to subsidize the cryogenic freezing of recent college graduates until the job market recovers.

The bill, expected to swiftly pass in both houses, would facilitate the subzero preservation of any graduate of a two- or four-year educational institution. Sponsors of the initiative said that with the national unemployment rate at just under 10 percent, it only made sense for young job-seekers to temporarily enter a state of supercooled stasis.

"Finding employment is extremely difficult for today's college graduate," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said. "Our current economy offers few options for the millions of young men and women desperate to join the workforce."

"Were we to freeze these graduates at the height of vigor and ambition, however, there's a chance we could revive them during a more prosperous time," Hutchinson continued. "When the economy finally bounces back—10, 20, even 30 years from now—we'll have an entire generation thawed out and ready to contribute."

The Frozen For Their Future Act reportedly calls for the installation of thousands of cryogenic tanks at college commencement ceremonies around the country. Upon receiving their diplomas, newly minted graduates will immediately make their way to preservation stations where their hearts will be artificially stopped using electroshock or a potassium-salt solution. Once a graduate's blood is drained and replenished with an anti-crystallizing fluid, they will be submerged in liquid nitrogen, a process that will, in effect, put them into suspended animation until key sectors of the American economy such as real estate and information technology have rebounded.

According to Walter Reardon of the Cryonics Partnership Inc., it will be essential for the freezing procedure to be conducted as quickly as possible.

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"Graduates will never be more primed to enter the workplace than at the exuberant moment they toss their caps in the air," said Reardon, who claimed that cryogenics was the only hope for an estimated two-thirds of the nation's students. "Wait even two days, and a graduate's brain will begin to show the effects of fretting about the dismal job market. Wait six months, and you might have a permanently cynical underachiever resigned to his position at a mall sunglasses kiosk."

"Frankly, that person might not even be worth bringing back," Reardon added.

Under the proposed guidelines of the legislation, frozen graduates would remain in storage at a temperature of minus 196 degrees Celsius (minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit) until the unemployment rate fell to a more manageable 4.5 percent. All graduates would also be required to sign a waiver stating that they understood the risks involved, and that there was no guarantee the economy of the future would ever grow sufficiently to warrant their revival.

While acknowledging this danger, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who cosponsored the bill with Sen. Hutchison, said smaller subsets of graduates could be reanimated as needed if special circumstances created a demand for their skills.

"Let's say there's some sort of environmental crisis," Schumer said. "Well, we could selectively thaw students who majored in ecology or climatology and provide them with jobs. The same logic would apply if, say, 300 years from now a real-world application for people with philosophy degrees somehow arose."

Soon-to-be college graduates were divided about the pending legislation. While some expressed reluctance to induce their own clinical death, other students seemed content to postpone their job hunting for a while.

"Everyone I know is either unemployed or barely getting by," University of Illinois senior Kim Levesque said. "If they want to put me on ice until there are more jobs out there, that's totally fine with me. Not to mention the fact that I won't have to think about my student loans for a while."

When reached for comment, a spokesman for loan provider Sallie Mae said that educational loans taken out by graduates in cryogenic storage would continue to accrue interest indefinitely at 6.5 percent.

Economy fails College Graduates