NSCC graduates urged to follow their passions at any age

SALEM – From the student who earned her associate degree 14 years after starting college to bestselling author Andre Dubus III?s keynote address, speakers of North Shore Community College?s 48th commencement wanted the graduates to know that it?s never too late to pursue a passion.In her first commencement as president of North Shore Community College, Patricia Gentile remarked that the 1,000 members of the Class of 2014 were different from most, that the typical NSCC grad wasn?t a 22-year-old at the very beginning of his or her life. To begin the ceremony, held at Salem State University, she recognized the members of the class, asking them to stand if they were veterans, first-generation graduates, parents and single parents, and praised those who earned degrees or certificates despite full-time jobs, family obligations and hardships.Juliet Carty Green was one such student. In her address, she told her fellow graduates how after graduating high school in 1999 and taking classes at two colleges, she decided college wasn?t for her, and she instead began working full time to support her fatally ill father. In 2012, she enrolled at NSCC, despite nerves of being the oldest in the classroom.?It?s never too late,” Green told her class. “If there is one thing that you remember that can apply to any phase of your life, please let it be that.”Green admitted she first felt overwhelmed by all the education needed to pursue psychology, but from the podium she confidently announced that she would be continuing her education at Northeastern University in her goal to achieve a master?s in the field.?Thanks to what I have learned at NSCC, I am no longer afraid of my dream,” she said.Dubus also spoke of being both afraid of and fueled by his passion. The author and professor, known for best sellers like “House of Sand and Fog,” encouraged the graduates to “find your own bliss,” which he defined as “when you do that thing … you are more ?you? than when you do not.”Dubus described coming from a broken home, of learning to box just to feel powerful, and one day, for no particular reason, he sat down to write a scene.?I felt more like Andre than I ever have in my life,” said Dubus, describing that moment. “I felt so awake, so alive, totally like me ? now I write five or six days a week just for that feeling.”Dubus encouraged the students in front of him to follow their intuition.?It?s a happy accident that I have success,” he said. “I love my life, not because I?m a successful writer but because I love what I do.”He left his audience with a quote by philosopher and civil rights leader Howard Thurman: “Don?t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”