By Abby Lass
Managing Editor of Arts
With the seniors graduating and going out into the real world, the only thing left to do is say our goodbyes. What better way to do that than with a graduation speech?
Senior Sierra Weintraub had the idea for her speech for over a year and was finally given the chance to share it with her class during graduation this past Thursday in South’s field house.
“I thought it would be pretty cool to do the speech at graduation,” Weintraub said. “It was announced that there would be tryouts and that people should sign up and I was like, ‘yeah, I kind of want to write one just to see.’”
The last to audition out of all the applicants, Weintraub credits her being selected as the speaker to the humor in her speech.
“I just started writing one day and I googled ‘how to write a graduation speech’ because I had no clue where to start,” Weintraub said. “I got a lot of bad jokes and corny quotes, so I started off my speech making fun of that. My speech kind of pokes fun at cliché graduation speeches, but at the same time it is still cliché enough to appeal to all the grandparents and faculty in the room.”
So, what did Weintraub choose to focus on in her final address to the Newton South community?
“I talk about how graduation should be a time to celebrate our everyday awesomeness and what got us to this point instead of making huge promises for our futures,” Weintraub said. “I also talk about how everyone is an individual and awesome in their own way. And there is a story about Mr. Stembridge being a zombie because, you know, who doesn’t love zombies.”
Weintraub says that her speech is inspired partially by her take on the quote “Today is the first day of the rest of your life,” but is mainly influenced by her peers.
Despite her confidence in her public speaking abilities-Weintraub is no stranger to the Newton South Speech Team or to South Stage productions-she is a bit nervous about how her speech will be received.
“I hope[d] people [would] actually laugh and think it’s funny because humor is sometimes hard to use when talking to a big crowd,” she said.
So, what’s next for Weintraub?
“Because there is always an appropriate Into the Woods quote, ‘I am excited and scared,’” Weintraub said. “I’m taking a gap year next year so I won’t be going straight to college, so I am a little nervous to go out on my own a little into the real, real world. But I have been away from home gallivanting the globe plenty of times to know that I will probably be fine and I will have a blast.”
Check out Weintraub’s speech here: graduationspeech
