Read the student speech from the Class of 2020 Graduation ceremony
Alice Burns (BA English, 2020) gave a moving, funny and inspiring speech at the Class of 2020 Graduation Ceremony on 24th February 2022:
"Vice Chancellor, distinguished guests, friends, family and fellow students: I’m Alice, and I am one of the 2020 cohort graduates, so hello.
Over the course of today, and the last two years, we have heard plenty about the various challenges we’ve faced – the adversities, the difficulties and hardships that we have, to varying degrees, all experienced. We’ve then heard about the great resilience, courage and fortitude with which these challenges were faced, and will continue to be faced with going forward. It is a shared experience like no other, and one that we are now all more than familiar with. In essence: you don’t need me to stand here and tell you about the challenges of a pandemic gate-crashing your final year at university.
So, really then, this is probably less of a traditional graduation speech, and more a letter of thanks. It’s a thank you to the people who were with us at the very beginning – our ever-enduring parents, guardians, and relatives.
It’s a thank you to those we met along the way. Housemates, course mates, mates you met on the bus. The friends we made (whether we met them on day one in Abercromby Square frantically searching for the right tutorial room, only to find out that Jill’s office is actually somewhere off the coast of Narnia); or even if we met them halfway through the year stuck to the sticky floor of the Raz.
It’s also a thank you to all the tutors and staff who supported us throughout, with not only wisdom (and biscuits), but also with great generosity and kindness at a time when we all really needed it. Whether you were explaining semantics, helping us grapple with Romanticism or organising weekly quizzes, our experiences were made richer by your investment in us. And it wasn’t until we’d left that I realised that it’s the people of the university who make it. It’s the people of the university who are the most valuable resource of all.
As well as all the people gathered with us in this room, I’d like to also take this opportunity to thank the people who couldn’t be with us today. Whether that’s the international students who couldn’t get the flights, to those now working away with full-time jobs.
It’s also a thank you to the people we have lost along the way, which in these times, perhaps feels more pertinent than ever.
During third year, in the pandemic, I lost two of my grandparents. They were both firm believers in the power of education, and I remember my Nan telling me that the only thing she ever regretted was having not pursued her education further. When she was in her sixties, she went back to college at Blackburne House on Hope St to study English; determined to make up for lost time. So when I first told her that I was going to Liverpool Uni to do English Literature, her first words were a (scouse) outburst of pride, and a promise to enrol me as an honorary member of the Blackburne House Book Club. I could tell her about any book I’d be reading on my course, and if she hadn’t read it, she knew the plot. Even with some of the most obscure texts, (including, to my surprise, Tis Pity She’s a Whore was a play that she’d actually heard of).
When I told her in third year that I then wanted to pursue my PhD after finishing my Masters, I knew that kind of commitment could be met with scepticism about finding a job and concerns for the cost. But my Nan, all 5ft of her, firmly sat me down and told me that out of all the things that can be taken away from a person in life, an education is the one thing that cannot be taken. That qualifications, once met, stay with us. Much like the people that make us.
I may not be the kind of person to provide you with a rousing speech of fortitude and inspiring stories of adventure. I can’t whip out a witty anecdote of a wild night out or give you a summary of ground-breaking research. I didn’t do a year in China or become President of a successful society. But collectively, we did. Each of us did something we might not have expected from ourselves when we started here five years ago. It might have been a speech, or finishing an essay on time, or even just making friends in those nervous first weeks. Collectively, we are testament to the diversity of experiences Liverpool has to offer: as a city, as an institution, but most importantly, as a community.
We are the University of Liverpool. And as clichéd as it sounds, we have helped to shape it, in the short time we have spent here, and, in turn, Liverpool has helped shape us. So congratulations – to everyone graduating today – and thank you, to everyone that helped to get us here."