first Lady jill biden Gave a commencement speech for three graduating classes from Tuesday night angel City College sheds light on the stories of community college students who secured their degrees against tough odds.
At the ceremony, First Lady, students and administrators talked about what school students did against drug addiction, homelessness, COVID harm and going to school when pregnant or having young children.
The first lady to continue teaching English in the North said, ‘These stories, the stories of your perseverance and perseverance, are so inspiring. Virginia community College.
She spoke of three graduate students in her keynote address, including a pregnant woman who had recently immigrated to America named Mary, whose waters broke during her final exams.
‘Now, we all know those students who will ask to be exempted from the exam for a runny nose. But not Mary,’ Biden said. ‘Through her contractions – praying that her baby would last a little longer – she completed her test and then later, gave birth to a healthy baby.
‘That’s what finishing her degree means to her,’ the first lady said.
Biden also talked about a Marine Corps veteran named Steve who didn’t let his PTSD define him, and was in the graduating class — and also a 46-year-old graphic designer named Ilya, enrolled during the pandemic. happened. LACC classes, and is now starting a second career as a teacher.
First Lady Jill Biden gave a commencement speech Tuesday night for three graduating classes from Los Angeles City College, highlighting the stories of community college students who got their degrees against tough odds.
First Lady Jill Biden (right) and Los Angeles City College President Mary Gallagher (left) point to graduates during the school’s commencement ceremony in Los Angeles
Graduates of the 2020, 2021, 2022 classes from Los Angeles City College listen as First Lady Jill Biden gives a commencement speech
The first woman to continue teaching English at Northern Virginia Community College said, ‘These stories, your stories of perseverance and resilience, are so inspiring.
First Lady Jill Biden (second from left) reacts as director of the Los Angeles City College Foundation Robert Schwartz (right) shows a poster of Biden at Los Angeles City College
“She will start a new chapter and make an old dream come true,” Biden said.
Other student speakers talked about the challenges to getting those associate degrees Tuesday night at a ceremony at the open-air Greek Theater in Los Angeles, located on a hillside below Griffith Observatory.
‘I was drunk, a university dropout, with virtually zero future plans,’ commented Stephanie Stone, 2022 president of the Associated Student Government. She said that after four years out of university she ‘went into a decade of depression, addiction and self-loathing.’
She told the audience that she has been doing sober marks for almost three years. She also told her fellow graduates that it’s okay not to be all right.
‘If someone tells you they figured everything out, run away – they’re probably a cult leader,’ he joked.
Valedictorian Volek Sipp joked about how he and his teammates had ‘transferred to the University of Zoom’ during the advent of the COVID pandemic.
“All of a sudden my stress about getting a good grade increased with the existential threat of a global, societal collapse,” she said.
But she also spoke earnestly about her personal cost – losing both her mother and aunt to the disease.
“That semester I had three of the kindest professors a student could ask for,” she said.
Sip further heads to UCLA to earn a degree in psychology.
LACCD board member Andra Hoffman highlights some of the struggles she knows students face.
Hoffman said, ‘I know many of you have no permanent place to call home and some of you have had to sleep in your cars. ‘I know some of you depend on our food pantry and I know many of you do two things.’
She said, ‘I know some of you are raising young children. And had to contend with unreliable Internet service, she noted.
He joked that degrees from LACC are available to ‘the top 100 percent of students who apply’.
“Our doors are open to anyone who wants to benefit from our programmes.
Hoffman explained that the graduates at the ceremony represented ages 69 to 16, and included some who are DACA recipients and have been incarcerated in the past.
First Lady Jill Biden greets the 2022, 2021, 2020 graduates of Los Angeles City College during a ceremony Tuesday night at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles
Dr Jill Biden (left) hugs Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (right), who was nominated by her husband for ambassador to India but his nomination hangs in the US Senate
The graduations of the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 were celebrated on Tuesday night, which did not make for an in-person graduation ceremony during the pandemic.
The graduations of the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022 were celebrated on Tuesday night, which did not make for any in-person graduation ceremonies during the pandemic.
School administrators expressed surprise at the fact that Biden chose the community college in East Hollywood to deliver the commencement address.
“Of all the colleges that our first lady could have chosen to start, she chose us,” said Mary Gallagher, president of Los Angeles City College.
But as the second woman she partnered with Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — who was on Tuesday evening — for a Los Angeles pilot program to offer free tuition to community college degree earners.
Garcetti’s nomination for ambassador to India is pending in the US Senate.
The First Lady will also attend the Summit of Americas during the visit – President Joe Biden will fly to Los Angeles on Wednesday for three days of meetings with leaders of North, Central and South America.