In the coming weeks, students all over the country will be leaving their college lives behind and will head out to the world. College graduation can be one of the most important events in a person’s life. Yet for many students, commencement is one of the most boring events of their lives. Why do many students find an ocassion meant to mark their sucess and hard work boring? The answer is commencement speakers.

Tell me where you are graduating from, and I will tell you about your commencement speaker. He or she is a highly successful member of the community or alumni. Unless, of course, you attend a large state school, in which case he or she is a highly successful business mogul or celebrity that draws attention to the institution. Your speaker is going to spend nearly an hour telling you and your fellow future alumni how it is your time to succeed and that you merely need to reach out and grab it. You’re going to hear about what is waiting for you in the real world and how exciting it is. The speaker will tell you that hard work and dedication will get you everywhere. This will go on for almost an hour, and you will begin daydreaming about pick-up lines for the post-graduation party.

You will hear the same thing that millions of other students will be hearing. Now, I’m not saying that what they say isn’t true, and you shouldn’t take it into consideration. And I am not saying that you shouldn’t be grateful that someone is taking the time to give you some final advice. What I’m saying is that colleges and universities need to rethink who they are tabbing to give these speeches. What good is a speaker if no one is listening to what they have to say? Why listen to them if you know what you’re going to hear already? Instead of the typical commencement speaker who represents the success that can be out there, let’s get some advice from someone who can tell us what to be wary of and what to avoid.

So I ask the institutions of higher learning to reconsider their choices of speakers. There is still time. Notre Dame, let President Obama get back to work on the economy. Get a speaker that shows your students what can happen if you’re not smart about your life choices. Bring in Britney Spears! Students may not take the lessons of President Obama to heart, but they sure as heck will listen to a certifiably crazy pop star, if only to avoid marrying a white-trash backup dancer. University of South Carolina, tell Stephen Colbert to work on his next Report. As entertaining as he is, will he tell the graduating students anything they haven’t heard before? No, but Gary Coleman can. There is a man that you can learn from. He can teach you that success can be short (no pun intended) lived, and that reality shows are always a bad idea.

Graduation should be an exciting and important time in a student’s life. They shouldn’t be bored by the same old speech. Life isn’t like what all of these speakers tell us. Graduating seniors need to know about everything that can happen, not just the good things. As Gary Coleman can tell you, it takes diff’rent strokes to the move the world.