Rusty Saber: Wide-open future ahead for 2003 graduates

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Joe McAdoo is former chairman of the communication department at Drury University.|ret||ret||tab|

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As a one-time college teacher, spring brings on the urge to pass on to graduating seniors what I think they need to hear at commencement. It's been a while since I last offered "Rusty Words of Quasi-Wisdom." Class of 2003, these words are for you.|ret||ret||tab|

Congratulations, graduates. Welcome to the demographic category called "College Educated." Your professors have bestowed a wealth of knowledge upon you. As well you should, you feel primed and ready for whatever it is that you intend to do with your lives.|ret||ret||tab|

At this moment, you are at the top of your game. You are filled with information and know-how. You are the epitome of the educated person. It may astonish you to learn that 20 years from now, graduates in the class of 2023 will think of you as pretty square. They may even wonder how you managed to graduate from college knowing so little. |ret||ret||tab|

You probably would feel the same about the class of 1983. You would likely think that in comparison with yours, their music and dress were square and their grasp of technology was ancient. They were mostly clueless about the gadgets you assume to be essential for a normal life.|ret||ret||tab|

The truth is that the rapid speed of technology will likely make much of what you know today obsolete; future graduates will probably let you hear about it.|ret||ret||tab|

Things may change so rapidly that the career you have prepared for may not exist when the Class of '23 graduates; likewise, your career 20 years from now may not exist today. Check with the Class of '83; they can fill you in about the changes since their graduation. However, they adapted to the changes and so will you.|ret||ret||tab|

Some changes are subtle and others can be drastic. Just a few short years ago, few of us would have predicted the fate of the dot com companies. In a flash, most were gone. No one would have foreseen that Enron, the poster child for the giddy ride the economy took during the 1990s, would implode. The fallout from this and other corporate malfeasance may change drastically the way business is conducted in the future. Hopefully, a new standard of ethical conduct will become the benchmark of the American free-enterprise system of your day.|ret||ret||tab|

Among other changes prior to your 20th reunion, hopefully, will be significant breakthroughs in combating deadly diseases. How sweet it would be if 20 years from now you could point to formidable strides in conquering diseases that have claimed the lives of far too many people. The Class of '23 might conclude that maybe the Class of '03 wasn't as backward as they thought. |ret||ret||tab|

Extraordinary advances in medical science have come with equally extraordinary health care costs. Bona fide changes in health insurance plans that will assure affordable care for everyone must be a large blip on your generation's radar screen.|ret||ret||tab|

Sept. 11, 2001, changed the nature of public safety. War is no longer combat between armies on foreign battlefields. War, in the form of terrorism, can come any time, any place. Somehow the people of the world must learn to live with one another.|ret||ret||tab|

Class of 2003, you will see even a greater explosion of new technologies than in the past. There will be so much more for you to learn; however, there are things to learn that never change. You must learn about human relationships; the need to be surrounded by people who love you. You will learn so much in your lifetime, but one thing will be more vital to you than perhaps you can imagine at this moment.|ret||ret||tab|

To Quote Nat "King" Cole in the song "Nature Boy": "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."|ret||ret||tab|

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