Cruz Marquis is graduating with a degree in Economics and Full University Honors.
“The end of college is a bittersweet time. It is a season of change—Most of us are weeks away from entering the labor market in earnest; some of us will go onto graduate school, and a few might even join the armed forces. No matter what the next destination is, everything changes after you leave undergrad, and this is a time to do the thing that no-one wants to do: update your resume.
The Honors Program at NIU is an excellent thing to put on your resume, but is that it? We who stand in this room completed the Honors Program and have every right to include it on our resumes, but is that why we went the extra mile? Did we negotiate in-course contracts, do the Connect Ten, write a capstone, attend the workshops, and burn the midnight oil on those big projects so we could have an extra line that reads Honors on our resume?
Maybe some of us did, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. At the same time, I would argue that there is greater meaning to the addendum Honors than meets the eye. The gold stole we earned is, in the parlance of my major, Economics, a signaling device. This stole shows that we had the opportunity to do the regular amount of work, but we did more instead. It shows that we place a high premium on getting the job done and doing it right. It shows that we are committed to excellence in our studies, engagement with our community, and integrity in our lives. It shows that when faced with adversity, we are tenacious in our response and unbreakable in will. That stole signals that you have the qualities that employers, dissertation advisors, and senior military officers are looking for in their new recruits. Is that just a line on a resume?
You get out of the Honors Program what you put into it. There really is no limit to what you can do with this program. They have job simulations, resume workshops, internship opportunities, community events, the capstone as well as research opportunities, artistic events, and so much more. I got quite a lot out of the Honors Program. What I took most out of the program was inspiration. I’m proud to say that when I took the Preparing for Graduate School experience, I found the courage to apply for and be accepted into the Economics Ph.D. program at George Mason University with a full-ride scholarship to become the first in my family to earn a doctoral degree. You get out of this program what you put into it.
When the Honors Program asked me to write this speech, the topic was what the Honors Program means to me. If I had to be concise about it, I would say that it’s more than just a line on a resume.”
