Opinion: Godspeed, grads, world is waiting

Every year about this time, young people begin their transition from high school into college, or the military, or the working world. The road ahead is rife with opportunities and dangers, and now they begin to find their way through it all.

It’s different this year for the high school graduating classes of 2021. The pandemic stifled most of their senior years, but for most New Mexican grads it opened up toward the end.

The New Mexico Activities Association crammed sports seasons into the last several weeks of the school year, so that football, basketball, volleyball, track and more went through fast-paced and abbreviated seasons en route to the larger reopening we’re now enjoying. Life is returning to normal, even though it will never really be normal again.

So much happened in 2020 that things can’t be the same. COVID-19 was obviously a game-changer but so was the replacement of Biden over Trump. And cyber advancements, and attacks, are coming at a dizzying pace as is the rise of artificial intelligence.

The prospects and the perils facing us in this post-pandemic, big-government, landscape-changing economy are many, and today’s grads enter into the thick of it all.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been preparing a special section for my newspaper on this year’s local graduates. We asked each of them to answer a few questions, and their responses give us insights into their hopes and dreams.

Some of what they’ve said is predictable, with dreams of making money and traveling the world dancing in their heads. Others are more focused, like the young man who is setting his sights on trade school and a career in wind energy. He not only sees it as an employment opportunity but as a way to contribute to a burgeoning green economy that might just save the earth and its inhabitants.

Then there are the dreamers who shoot for the moon, like the teenage mother who wants to get into law school. She has a hard climb in front of her, one that most people would fall from, but she’s not most people. Every now and then someone pulls off the impossible. I hope that next someone will be her.

Then there are those who want to help people. A career in medicine, particularly nursing, is a popular pursuit for many of these graduates - perhaps not surprisingly, considering the circumstances of this past year.

Then there are the slackers, the ones who express no real ambition. Perhaps they see the dangers more than the opportunities.

To today’s graduates, I say set your sights high, but realize that the bigger your dream, the harder and smarter you’ll have to work to make it come true.

And always remember that the more you serve the greater good, the more noble your quest.

Godspeed, grads. The world, such as it is, awaits your entry.

Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:

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