Dear Students

To all those who have graduated this week, my heartfelt congratulations, well done, you made it. This is the start of an amazing, exciting, terrifying and thrilling journey for you. Take all the plaudits thrown your way as you achieved this with your hard work, dedication and commitment and you deserve all the praise showered upon you. Enjoy your day, revel in your success and then take a deep breath and prepare yourself for the world of work. If i can offer one tip it would be to remember that feeling of insecurity and nervousness on your first day in work and how you desperately scan the room looking for a friendly face to throw a wing around you and guide you for those first few scary weeks. Then in the future, when you see another new employee wearing that same worried and confused expression as you on that first day, remember how that felt and be the friendly face everyone is nervously hunting for.

To all, those leaving college to go to University, this is a big step but also one of the best steps of your life. Study hard but don't forget to enjoy what is an amazing experience meeting new people, undertaking new experiences and for many, the first time that you have lived away from your families. 
Yes it can appear daunting at first but that feeling will pass and your time at University will be one that you can look back on with pride and enjoyment. My only tip for you is with all the studying and lectures, don't forget the other side of University life, to have a great time.

To those leaving school to go to College, this is where it all starts. School is over and if you hated school or the students that you shared it with, this is nothing like that. It's new friends, a fresh start and the beginning of the rest of your life. Now is where you can choose whatever you want to be, the rest of your working life stretches out in front of you like a blank canvas just waiting for you to make your mark. College is where you are pointed in the right direction for something that you want to do in lessons that interest you with a classroom of students who share your interests or else they wouldn't be there. There are no more boring lessons that you spent the entire period staring out of a window in school. My tip for you would be this is where you make the mistakes so don't be afraid to mess up, we all did, and this is the best time to make the mistakes and have them put right.       
 
To those still in school, use the next six weeks to climb trees, go on holiday, drink slush puppies until you get brain freeze, fall off bicycles, eat Doritos until you are sick, stay up late to watch horror films, go swimming, dance at concerts, run through the park sprinklers and kick a football around until it's so dark that you can't see who you are kicking the ball to. Don't be in a rush to grow up and keep doing the things children do because all to quickly those days are gone and you are into the adult world and burping competitions and seeing how many crisps you can fit in your mouth at one time are frowned upon. Just enjoy the time you have when you can still eat ice cream with your hands without being shunned.

To all students, young and old, it is a cliche but as any adult will tell you, this really is the best time of your life, please don't waste it.