Engineering Commencement Student Address

University at Buffalo

May 13, 2000

By

JOE MORITZ, UB BS CHEMICAL ENGINEERING 2000

PRESIDENT, New York NU CHAPTER, TAU BETA PI

Yesterday afternoon at around 3:30 I went on the Internet to download a suitable graduation speech for our ceremony today. But, as is usual for the Internet, all the information I found was useless, and all the speeches I did find were lame. It was at that point, in a desperate panic, I got hungry and popped open a can of peanuts - and that’s when inspiration hit:

I CALL MY SPEECH "PEANUT AND CIRCUMSTANCE"

Welcome friends, family, and classmates of the Graduating Class of 2000. We’re here, finally, to celebrate our completion of our four (or five, or six . . . or in the case of my two great friends, Dave and Daryl, many many more) years of Engineering Education here at the University at Buffalo. And to illustrate the joy and pride I am about to impart to you on our accomplishments these many years, I’d like to compare our undergraduate engineering experience to a food we all know and love: the peanut.

Engineering students are a lot like peanuts. In a certain selection of peanuts there are all different shapes and sizes. Certainly each one is unique and has its own qualities. Unfortunately, Sometimes along the way, the reject peanuts get diverted to less demanding fields, such as candy bars or peanut butter. Many of our fallen peanut friends could not be here today – these are the burnt ones, the ones that could not stand up to the constant roasting which engineering provides. Look around this room, and you will see the people that have made it – you should be proud, because you’re the cream of the crop.

But a peanut just wouldn’t be a peanut without salt. Certainly, the salt, sprinkled from above in precious crystalline portions, is like the knowledge which our professors dole out in packet form – or should I say homework problem set form – so consistently and thoroughly. And while one may get sick from ingesting salt after a while you can’t dispute its value to the peanut as a whole.

Every peanut came into this can as a completely different person – but after the rigors of shipping and handling throughout the years, we’ve all shared some salt and oils, and we’ve all become better for it. We will look back on these times at the University at Buffalo and remember them as the best of our lives. We’ve grown . . . . . (and many of us have increased in size as well.) While we will all now be going our separate ways, of course we’ll never forget our roots. And most importantly, we’ll never forget all the other nuts we’ve run across. So I implore you now to go out into the real world, crack open your shells, and feast on the salty, oily goodness which you’ve accumulated throughout these years - to make this world a bUtter place.

To conclude, I’d like to tell a peanut related story. The famous American hero, Homer Simpson, when looking for a lost peanut, found twenty dollars. At this point he said to himself: "Awww, twenty dollars! But I wanted a peanut!" Surprisingly, there is a lesson to be learned from this. I wouldn’t trade any amount of money for the experiences I’ve had and friendships I’ve formed here at UB. I hope all of you feel the same. Good luck, and congratulations, class of 2000.