Graduation address: Wednesday 29 June morning ceremony

Graduation address by Professor Sharon Ashbrook, School of Chemistry

Vice-Chancellor, honoured guests, colleagues, graduates of the University, welcome to this graduation ceremony and to this very special day here in St Andrews. Let me start by offering all of you who have celebrated their graduation today my warmest congratulations on your success. 

This is the second time I have been asked to do a graduation address. For the first, I followed fairly traditional lines. I talked about the hard work it takes to complete a degree, explained how the graduating class had not achieved their success alone, but with help from the academic staff, and support from their families and friends. I also talked about the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead as the graduates moved on from St Andrews. 

By definition, then this address has to be a little different, given the backdrop of the global pandemic against which it is set, and which has caused a delay to your graduation ceremony. We should, of course, still highlight all of your hard work, perhaps even more so given the difficult circumstances under which your degrees have been obtained. And it is true you did not achieve these alone, although the pandemic may well have made some of you feel more alone than you had anticipated. Many of you will have had virtual access to staff for long periods, and all of you will have missed that day-to-day support of your peers and classmates. You probably did not realise how reassured you were to leave the lecture theatre and hear that no one else understood the last ten minutes of that particular lecture either! And, of course, the delay to this ceremony means that you have already taken those next daunting, but very exciting, steps.

The pandemic has been difficult for all of us – probably in different ways. Some of us have lost loved ones and missed key events in the lives of our families and friends. Some will have struggled personally, perhaps with our physical health or our mental health. As with all challenges though, the pandemic has taught us valuable lessons – lessons about our communities, about our relationships and about ourselves. 

I have learned a lot about myself. I learned how much I prefer in-person teaching (despite the stress I feel before a live lecture), and how much I value face-to-face interactions with my research group and my colleagues. I learned how much I liked watching live football. I learned how easy it was to spend a lot of money very quickly on online shopping (and that there is perhaps a maximum number of soft furnishings a one bedroomed flat can have…). 

The pandemic did teach me one thing about myself that I would like to share with you today. Anyone in the audience or on the stage who knows me well, will know I like a bit of organisation. I like to plan. I have to-do lists of to-do lists. I write conference talks months in advance. I turn up hours early for trains, let alone for planes. I really do not like unexpected changes. The pandemic, of course, changed all of this. However, what I found is that I was much more resilient and much more adaptable than I had ever thought I could be. 

I changed how and what I taught at very short notice. I changed it back again at even shorter notice! When travel was disrupted, I did not panic, I just rethought, replanned and rebooked. When things were cancelled, as many things were, I realised it was not worth regretting what I could not do, and I just looked forwards to what I might be able to do next. 

It is great then to have plans, aims and goals, but these need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to adapt to changing circumstances, to allow you to take advantage of new and unexpected opportunities. When things do not go to plan (as many things will not) there is no point dwelling on what might have been, rethink, replan and look forward to the next opportunity.

As you leave here today then, I would encourage you to think about the resilience and adaptability that the pandemic has forced us all to find within ourselves. Reflect on how much you have achieved in the most difficult of times. Use that resilience and exploit it as you move forwards in the next stages of your careers and your lives. You leave, of course, with our very best wishes for the future. We hope you are successful in all that you do, but more than that we hope that you are happy. We look forward to hearing about all of your achievements and celebrating these with you. So, congratulations once again, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day.