Perspective: Graduation is Not the End, Do Your Alma Mater Justice

I arrived on this campus four years ago with a dream and a prayer; hoping only to leave with a degree. But I find that I'm leaving with so much more than that. I'm leaving Howard with a network and a family; and what I like to call "My A-Team."

As many have said before and will say again, the Howard experience is like none other in the world. Here we learned the skills of our given trades, but we learned how to hustle hard for what we want because you need to be ten steps ahead of the competition.

If Howard has taught me one thing, it is that the most qualified person will not always get the job. Sounds terrible, right? But in the grand scheme of things, that isn't so bad. Life is all about the relationships that you make with people. Understand that you are only as good as your network, and if you don't have a network that will take you far, then you may just be in for a world of trouble. Simply put, you have to treat people well if you expect to go anywhere.

To the class of 2011- I ask you...no I charge you...no I dare you to believe. Believe in yourselves and all of the traits, assets and abilities that you have. For it is not Howard that has given us these attributes, but the things that we did in our time here. Understand that this is much larger than you. In my first month at Howard I learned that "we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us," and we are standing on some pretty grand shoulders..so we are obligated to do Alma Mater justice.

"How?" you may ask. Well that's simple. Be brilliant. Be bold. Dare to be a catalyst for change in whatever it is that you may end up doing. And give back.

Let us not rest on the legacy from whence we came. We all know that Howard has a history for producing excellence. But who among us will be the next Supreme Court Justice, Fortune 500 CEO, major motion picture director or even President of the United States? I'm willing to bet its one of the people you played Spades with in the lounge of Drew Hall, or one of the people you were a prospect with, or one of the people you saw time and time again in the iLab trying to finish up their semester.

As I close out this perspective, and my time at Howard, I remind you all of something that the School of Communications' Dr. Debyii Sababu-Thomas said as a standard for the Howard University Mock Trial Team (which, by the way, went 7th in the Nation this year); "Rule, Reign and Reside in the UPPER Echelons of Excellence."

Yours in Service,

Marquis H. Barnett

2011 Bachelor of Science Degree

Communication Sciences and Disorders