Clare Gaffey University at Albany Commencement Speech 2018

Objective:

Note the commencement speech Clare delivered at the May 19, 2018 UAlbany graduation.

Conclusion:

The speech was presented at
the University at Albany's 2018 Recognition Ceremony for the
Department of Africana Studies, Geography and Planning, Latin American,
Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies, and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies

Introduction and speech appear below.

source

Introduction by Dr. Catherine Lawson

It is with my great pleasure to announce Clare Gaffey
as our student speaker from the Department of Geography and Planning.

Clare is one of our best Geography Masters students who worked for 2 years as research assistant, and, at the same time,
managed to receive only excellent grades and find time for her hobbies such as hiking and cross country skiing.
She is one of our best drone pilots, participant of professional meetings, co-author of 3
scientific papers and manager of our departmental Facebook page.

After her graduation this summer Clare decided to continue her academic career.
She was accepted into PhD programs at several universities including Clark University, SUNY Buffalo and Ohio State.
Perhaps she can tell us which university she finally choose and share her experience at UAlbany with us today.

[Clare Gaffey Approaches The Podium]

Clare Gaffey

I am here to say a couple of things. The first is to congratulate you on your great achievement of making it here today.

Every one of you made significant sacrifices to make it to this mile stone.
To be here now means that you demonstrated dedicated determination throughout four years of classes,
conquered concepts that were once alien to you in a place that was once foreign to you.
You should be immensely proud of yourselves

Secondly, I would like to share my own story and offer any advice that I can.
I, like you, graduated from SUNY Albany back in 2012 with a B.S. in environmental science.
I had hoped to use my degree to help save the natural world and make a living wage doing it.

However, I did not have a career waiting for me after graduating. In fact I worked as a waitress, full time, for 6 months.
Eventually I landed a job related to my interests as training coordinator for a renewable energy company. I was ecstatic.
I had a big role in a small company. My boss, the president of the company, was a good mentor to me.
He paid for me to attend women-in-the-workplace conferences, trusted me as a representative of his company,
and more often than not encouraged me to pursue my own initiatives.

After a couple years at the company, I was laid off. My position replaced with his own daughter.
I am not bitter, but it goes to show even people on your side can let you down sometimes.

Next, I decided I would like to become a forest ranger. I would get to work outside,
make a nice paycheck, and literally protect the environment. I passed the written test, passed the physical test,
passed the exhaustingly extensive background check and had an interview scheduled.

At this point I felt confident I had the job. I invested a lot of time into the process and vice versa their personnel to me.
The day of my interview I made it to the Encon building and was led into a waiting room full of other interviewees.
Immediately, a pit sank in my stomach that rang "I do not belong here."

I was apparently the youngest person there, I was definitely the shortest person there, and I was the only female.
After my interview one of the officers walked me back to the elevators and encouraged me to learn GIS and reapply.

You likely know, but for those of you that don't, GIS stands for Geographical Information Systems
and is basically software for looking at data on maps. At this point I had nothing else going for me so I said why not.
I returned to UAlbany to learn the software. UAlbany, however, had more in store for me than just learning GIS.
I took classes that sparked my interest in remote sensing and the environment,
I became involved in faculty research using satellite images and drones to analyze vegetation,
and it turns out I actually enjoy GIS.

UAlbany has offered me more opportunities than I could have expected.

It was at UA where I started a field hockey team, it was at UA where I became a yoga instructor,
it was through UA that I got to study abroad, it was at UA where I became a researcher.
The accumulation of these experiences has led me to my next step of beginning
Clark University's Geography Ph.D. program this upcoming fall.

I know each of you will take your own unique experiences from the University,
and these will help you down the road. What happens next is largely up to you.

Strive to be the best version of yourself in anything that you choose to do.

By making it here today you have already proven you are capable of accomplishing anything you decide to pursue.
Whatever circumstance you find yourself in, please never ever sell yourself short.

[Dr. Catherine Lawson]
Thank you Clare and we wish you well in your future as a Ph.D. student.