English - The Petroleum Institute

Class of 2011 SpeechMariam Tareq KhalilClass of 2011 RepresentativeYour Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, CrownPrince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAEArmed Forces, your Highnesses, your Excellencies, honorable anddistinguished guests, proud family and friends, faculty members, and,above all, the very reason for our presence here today, members of theClass of 2011: welcome to our Commencement ceremony. Thank youall for giving me the very great honor of representing my graduatingclass today.On this special day, we gather to celebrate our academic success, and Iwould like to congratulate all the members of the graduating class onreaching this most important milestone in their professional careers.This day, however, marks not the end of the journey, but simply the endof a chapter of our lives. We all know how much there is still to learnand that our degrees are but a gateway to a world of opportunity.To reach the end of this chapter of our lives, we have all without doubtlived through a most demanding experience. As Petroleum Institutestudents, we strived to succeed in our chosen subjects, and we all experiencedvarious ups and downs over the years. Both, however, servedto make us stronger as we learned from our successes as well as fromour failures.to fear failure greatly myself, until I reached this understanding; nowI see failure as a learning opportunity. On this point, I would like toshare a very inspiring quote. Jerry Zucker once observed that “Nobodyelse is paying as much attention to your failures as you are... to everyoneelse, they’re just blips on the radar screen, so just move on.” Thisquote tells me that we should not become dispirited by our failures,but instead we should always look forward, to the next opportunityfor success. I believe that it is important always to try, and to try thebest we can and never give up.After all, the world is run by those who show up and do, not by thosewho sit and wait …. And we, the Class of 2011 – we showed up! Wedid it! We worked in accord with the ideals of the UAE’s visionaryfounder, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, may God rest his soul,when he declared that: “the role of a woman is no less than that of aman”.I wish you all prosperity, success, fulfillment, happiness and health inall you undertake.Thank you.As a student, I observed that some people are driven by a desire to succeed,while others are driven more by a fear of failure. I believe that itis important to focus on success, while recognizing that some failure isinevitable, given the richness and complexity of modern living. I usedSixth Annual Commencement - Class of 20119book-ENGV2-1.indd 91/8/2012 3:06:14 PM