The past two years have been difficult for everyone. President Joe Biden finds that very encouraging, especially for recent college graduates.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Naval Academy in Annapolis on Friday, Biden said that the class of 2022 is particularly well-equipped to change the world given the graduates’ proven ability to navigate uncertainty. . “You face more challenges maintaining a sense of mission, community, and purpose as the global pandemic forces … literally everything to change,” Biden said.
That adaptability has prepared graduates to make informed, informed decisions in an “uncertain world,” Biden added, noting that the choices leaders make directives will soon become “more consequential than ever.”
“You’re graduating at an inflection point, not just in American history, but in world history,” Biden said. “Things are changing so rapidly that the next 10 years will be the defining decade of this century because they will shape what our world looks like and the values that will guide it – not just before eyes but also for the generations to come.”
In addition to adaptability, Biden highlighted respect and inclusion as important leadership traits for young people to lean on, arguing that they are especially valuable right now as the world is rearranging. . In the past, nations allied with other nations based on geography and conflict, he said – but now it’s down to values, especially countries that prioritize people over rights. force.
“We live in a global struggle between autocracies and democracy,” Biden said. “That’s what you’re graduating from… a world that demands more than ever before for strong, effective American leadership. Where America leads not just by example of strength but by strength as well. strength of the mirror.”
The President acknowledged that the class of 2022 also faces more challenges than most graduating classes – including economic turmoil, international conflicts and an unaccounted pandemic. But the leadership skills they have learned, even inadvertently, can empower them to ultimately change the world for the better in the years to come.
“No generation of graduates can choose the world they… are about to graduate from,” Biden said. “It was conceived for you, but you have to change it.”
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