COLUMBUS, Ohio – President Obama says challenges and uncertainty will be constant for today’s college graduates and that is why they must “participate” in charting the nation’s path and “persevere” through the difficult times.
Speaking to The Ohio State University’s graduating students Sunday in Ohio Stadium, the President asked students to keep their citizenship in mind and maintain political will and a “dogged determination” to make the country a better place for everyone.
He urged them not to listen to the voices of anti-government cynics because “what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment is self-rule is just a sham.”
“Only you can make sure the democracy you inherit is as good as we know it can be, but it requires your dedicated and informed and engaged citizenship, and that citizenship is a harder, higher road to take but it leads to a better place,” he said.
Obama said there’s every reason to believe the future is bright, pointing toward a recovering economy and a reviving auto industry.
The university estimates about 8,000 students picked up their diplomas Sunday, as more than 57,000 friends and family members looked on.
Diplomas were given individually to each graduate, a practice rarely attempted by a university the size of Ohio State.
The class of 2013 includes 130 veterans, the first class of Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients to graduate, after the program was implemented in 2009.
Honorary doctorates conferred upon President Obama, photographer Annie Leibovitz, Thomas Pollard, a professor of cell biology and molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University, and Reinhard Rummel, who has dedicated his career to determining the earth’s gravity field with the utmost accuracy.