A Glimpse of Graduation

Profile Photo of Ryan Blodgett In the words of GLaDOS, “This was a triumph!” Through years of effort, hundreds of hours of classes, a ridiculous amount of formulas, and far too many tests, we are done. Wait, what do you mean we have to go to graduate school or get a job now? Maybe it would be best if we took some time to look back first.

A lot of things have happened since I came to UTD. Some things everyone knows about, like an historic election, the scariest economic situation in decades, and the release of the iPhone. Some things about UTD have changed in my time here, such as my ability to walk between campus buildings without a hard hat. Some things I hope will never change, such as how the Chess team is still beating almost everyone worth playing on Earth. I wish them luck in the upcoming space Olympics. I hope it will not be canceled.

Some events I know I will never forget, such as when it snowed last year in March and six or seven of us got into a snowball fight with Andrew Baker. You see, he was from Kansas, and everyone else was from Dallas or Houston. We had no idea what enough practice could do for one’s snowball fighting abilities.

It will soon be time to leave school and enter the working world. Some of you may have already done this. Either way, it is time for the Facebook generation to take over the business world. I would like to thank everyone for being here, my mom for being cool, and the Faculty and Staff of UTD for making this a unique place.

I remember when the Spirit Rock was installed and everyone read the Mercury article about it and said, “They paid how much for a rock?” But it turned out to be a great addition to the campus culture. Recently, I saw someone had written a marriage proposal on the rock. She said yes, by the way.

I remember when one of my freshman-year roommates, Kyle, gave a speech in Rhet 1101 on “leet speak.” This is certainly the campus to attend if you want to learn how to “pwn newbs.” UTD is a pretty nerdy campus. This is a very good thing. Also, I just lost the game. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it.

I remember when my PA let a few of us turn the lower hallway in our building into a haunted house and invite the kids of Richardson to check it out. She had no idea what was in store for the building. We set up fog machines, strobe lights, stereos with scary sound effects, and had a dozen people in costumes running it. I’d say at least a third of the kids who came to check it out were too afraid to walk through. See, I tend to go overboard with holiday decorations. My sophomore year, the on-campus housing people made me take down my lights. Apparently I had too many. “But, it’s only 30 strands of lights,” I told them. You might think that I would have learned my lesson, but no. This year it was the fire marshall who made me take down my overly extravagant light display.

I remember the political debates that filled the campus soon before the last election. The energy on November 4th in the Student Union was intense. The Democrats sat on the left side of the Galaxy rooms and the Republicans on the right. The Democrats vs. Republicans inflatable boxing ring was surprisingly exhausting. It was on campus that I first heard the results announced at 11:03 p.m. by John Stewart. I couldn’t believe it when I heard about the reactions at some other schools in Texas. Some students vandalized property using racist references and harassed others. I am very glad to have attended a campus filled with tolerant students.

I will never forget when the debate team finished third place at CEDA nationals just a few weeks ago, beating out teams like Harvard, Dartmouth, NYU, USC, and dozens of other schools.

I expect that most of you would agree, if you had it do over again, UTD would be the right choice. I’ll admit, I came here because they offered me the nicest scholarship, but I’m glad that I did. There are a lot of things that make this the place great. There are the secret tunnels underneath Founders, the nuclear waste pile that’s buried in an undisclosed location on campus, and the fact that self-replicating nanoscopic robots are being developed in the same building as artificial intelligence. UTD should be done building the new Skynet prototype by next year and expects to find Sarah Connor by 2011.

What makes UTD great is the faculty and staff. Dr. Champagne, who, although he has been at UTD for decades, can still give a good fist bump; Mr. Polze, who is probably the nicest and most easygoing professor I have ever had; Dr. Rockett, who made the Management Honor’s Program a success; Donna from advising, who made sure I didn’t “accidentally” forget to take any science classes; Ann Dutia, who is probably more responsible for me getting into law school than I am; Dr. Coleman, for letting me speak today on the condition that I try my best not to talk about Pokemon; and many others who have impacted all of us over the past few years.

UTD is the kind of place where people have more fun playing Blackjack at the homecoming dance than actually dancing; where our mascot may look like…well, you know what it looks like, but we can still be prideful about our campus athletics. UTD Football is undefeated for its 40th year. UTD is the kind of school where you can play Risk with friends while discussing strategies for real-life world domination, and if nothing else, I know the business school has made me unbelievable at Monopoly.

UTD is the kind of school where students can really get to know their professors, where no one gets lost in the crowd unless they make a serious effort to do so, and where I have met more than one student with a Top 20 in the world ranking in Guitar Hero.

It will soon be time to leave school and enter the working world. Some of you may have already done this. Either way, it is time for the Facebook generation to take over the business world. I would like to thank everyone for being here, my mom for being cool, and the Faculty and Staff of UTD for making this a unique place. I will never forget my time at UTD and I’m sure neither will anyone else in the graduating class of 2009.

Ryan Blodgett graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Business Administration from the School of Management.

At the University, he was a continuous member of the dean’s honor list and he served as vice president of the Management Honors Program.

He also was a member of the debate team, Moot Court, Phi Alpha Delta, Students in Free Enterprise and Legal Mediation. Additionally, he was a member of the John Marshall Pre-Law Society, Beta Gamma Sigma, the Residential Senate and the Dean’s Advisory Council in the School of Management.

Following graduation, Blodgett plans to study law at Harvard Law School.