Graduation!

Congratulations Graduates (and parents of graduates). For those of you who are graduating or know those who are, you may want to point them to some of the following resources to help them celebrate, recover and adapt to their post-academic life...

Celebrate

Ah commencement speeches. Moments of inspiration immediately blurred over by the memory of getting that diploma in your hand and the excitement of the party afterward, although there are a few noteworthy exceptions. Gradspot selected these Ten All-Time Best Graduation Speeches (but actually more like speech moments) and these as the Best of 2008, while USA Today selected these 10 Stellar Commencement Addresses. (The Best of 2008 list includes the moving Last Lecture speech by Randy Pausch at Carnegie Mellon, which is also available as a book in DACC's library.) The Humanity Archive gathers together 29 speeches that the Humanity Initiative feels are the most noteworthy and inspirational after reviewing thousands dating back into the 1930s. And finally, for something completely uninspiring, but quite funny, check out Stephen Colbert's commencement address last year at Princeton, when he advised graduates to Not Go Out and Change the World.

Recover

After the party, check out (or encourage your graduates to check out) these Top Ten Movies for Recent Grads according to Gradspot.

For an after-party chow down, if you don't want to go out, consider making something from Mr. Breakfast. Remember, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, even when you have it at 2 in the morning. Or maybe midnight cookie madness is more in your line? Well then, try BakingCookies.com.

Adapt

While life on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter can be a major part of a student's day, sometimes the postings on these sites may not present the most flattering portrait to potential employers. Unfortunately future employers are more and more likely to google any likely job applicant and check out any social web profiles. So it may be time for an online facelift, as Cleaning Up Your Online Profile explains.

This last is just one of the 30 steps in Gradspot's 30 in 30 Insider's Guide for Getting a Job in the 90s. This handy site offers a sequence of moves intended to help graduates undertake a plan of action in relation to their job search. While originally assembled in the 90s, it's been updated so that the advice still holds true today. While attending to cleaning up their online profile, jobseekers would also benefit from using another social networking site, LinkedIn, to improve their job search. In conjunction with using LinkedIn is the whole notion of branding yourself as part of modern job search.

Already have a line on a job? Great. Even internships don't completely prepare people for their first job. Here are some useful guidelines to make the transition into that first job easier. Even for experienced workers, the first day on any new job can benefit from planning. If that job is going to require any travel, it would be worthwhile to Prepare for Corporate Travel. If your trip involves leaving the country you'll want to make sure that you are up to date on what that entails as well, because travel restrictions regarding cross-border travel are changing in June. Another set of lifestyle changes comes with learning appropriate Internet, Email and Phone Use in the Workplace.

If transferring to another institution is the plan, graduates should doublecheck the DACC Transfer Checklist page to make certain they crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is. The College of the Sequoias has a useful list of reminders to help make the transition itself easier.

Whatever any graduate's plans, those of us at the DACC Library wish them all the best!