The celebration of Academy of the Canyons’ newest graduating class Thursday at Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center featured a celebration of a unique achievement made possible through the school’s partnership with College of the Canyons, which hosts the high school campus.
More than 6,200 college units were earned by the graduates, as well as 73 associate degrees, according to Principal Juliet Fine, which included nearly three-quarters of the 98 graduates on stage.
Which may have been why there was less talk of senior-class pranks and a bit more age-appropriate introspection and philosophy, during the commencement speeches.
The graduates’ work was a theme: Fine mentioned her own journey as the child of immigrants, her father a veteran who never completed high school, but served the nation and worked hard every day so Fine could earn a doctorate at University of Southern California, and ultimately a spot speaking to the families gathered in the college’s auditorium.
Fine shared wisdom that the graduates had gleaned prior to the students’ speeches.
Advait Krishanmoorthy had a version of Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” talk, sharing that “the real champions aren’t just the ones you watch on TV, the YouTubers, they are sitting in this audience,” with rewritten papers and exhaustion from balancing part-time jobs, a diploma and a degree path.
Camila Anaya, another graduate/associate-degree holder, shared about the importance of honesty in the journey, Fine said.
“‘So, before we rush into whatever comes next, I hope we take a second to recognize what we did here, not perfectly, not dramatically, just honestly,’” Fine quoted Anaya.
Aubrey McHorney, another diploma-degree earner, likened herself and fellow graduates to oak trees, which are all over Santa Clarita and deep-rooted parts of the community.
“So, fellow oak trees, as we are deep-rooted and deep-planted, as we pursue our ambitions, counter self-doubt in yourself and others,” McHorney wrote, “by remembering the duty we have to promote the survival of our environment and do the very best that we can.”
And then Alana Ramirez’s commencement speech shared a pearl more familiar perhaps to the millennials in the audience: “YOLO.”
Alana Ramirez shared a universal perspective she gained at AOC, through looking at a picture of Earth from billions of miles away.
The phrase made popular by Canadian rapper Drake, “You Only Live Once,” was a reminder from Ramirez to her fellow graduates to find significance in their respective lives, despite the knowledge but at the end of the day, everyone’s universe is just a tiny part of “the pale blue dot” that is Earth as it appears from outer space.
Emma Campos, another high school graduate with an associate’s degree, talked about how she and her high-achieving peers were learning to “embrace the pause,” which became a common side effect from the condition of frequently being asked, “So — what’s next?” she said.
“We repeated plans that sounded solid, chosen paths that seemed safe and told ourselves that if we just waited a little bit longer, a magical moment of clarity would arrive, and everything would make sense. So, we stayed in the pause,” she told the audience.
Then comes the realization, she added, that while living in “the pause” — e.g. her growth from wanting to be a Disney princess like “Belle” when she grew up to collegiate goals— they were forging their paths to the future.
“What actually shapes us is what we choose to do while it’s passing,” she said. “Maybe growing up is not about arriving at a final answer. Maybe it’s about recognizing that the pause has lasted long enough, and to have the courage and resilience, just like Belle, to move through it instead of settling in it.”
