NWHSU Alum Dr. Goertz Reflects on Commencement Address

Christine Goertz, DC, PhD | April 26, 2018

Christine Goertz, DC, PhD blog: What I Wish My Commencement Speaker Had Told Me 30 Years Ago

Recently I was invited to give the commencement address at my alma mater, Northwestern Health Sciences University (NWHSU). I would like to share that commencement address with you in this blog post, in honor of the NWHSU spring graduating class of 2018:

Good Afternoon. It is truly an honor to be with you today. As I began to prepare my remarks, I thought about my own graduation, which was also from Northwestern Health Sciences University, nearly 30 years ago. I figured that this would be an opportunity to borrow from the wisdom of my own commencement speaker. And then I realized that I could not remember a single word that he had said. So I started polling other health professionals, asking them what their commencement speakers had said at graduation. None of them could remember either! Probably the best advice I got was from a colleague who said, “It doesn’t matter what you say since no one will remember it anyway. The only mistake you can make is to talk longer than 10 minutes.”

Without more specific guidance to rely upon, I began to think about what I wish my commencement speaker had told me on graduation day. And that is what I want to share with you today. My Top 10 list, in no particular order, of the advice that I wish I had received 30 years ago.‌

Read the full ACA blog here.