The Valedictorian Speech that will change your life

Opening Thanks and Lighthearted Setup

The valedictorian begins by thanking family, friends, and academic adjudicators, with special recognition for relatives who traveled far to support them.

Before the main speech, they break the tension with a joke: some classmates won’t care what comes next. To keep the audience engaged, they call up Nathan Turner to provide “mood setting” guitar music so people don’t “zone out.”

The Rubik’s Cube Metaphor (High School in Four Chapters)

The valedictorian frames the entire high school experience as solving a Rubik’s Cube, progressing through four “chapters”:

Freshman Year — The First Confusing Shuffle

• The start of the cube puzzle: confusing, nerve-wracking, and focused on fitting in.
• Includes a humorous aside that it’s easier to care about Pokémon cards than you’d expect.
• Emphasizes matching colors and trying not to “turn in any unplanned direction.”

Sophomore Year — A Hazy, Noisy Blur

• Described as more fragmented and fuzzy.
• The “noise” comes from:
  • freshmen around you
• The “authority” comes from:
  • upperclassmen above you
• Memory becomes more scattered because of constant influence from all sides.

Junior Year — Responsibility and the Cost of Wrong Moves

• More leadership and pressure.
• Heightened AP/IB expectations.
• More demands from coaches and underclassmen.
• The key realization: one wrong move can send you “back to square one.”

Senior Year — The Final Stretch (With One Big Task)

• The end feels close, but there’s one last major “important thing” left.
• A joke compares college applications to a chaotic marriage proposal.

The Biggest Comedic Highlight: College Applications as a Proposal

The most notable comedic moment centers on the analogy that college applications are like being forced to propose—sourced from a “Lance jabber” riff.

Key points of the comparison:

• You only get “one shot.”
• You agonize over the decision.
• You wait for a response.

Then comes the twist:

• In the proposal scenario, the guy secretly proposes to “backup girls” (“backup chicks”) to avoid rejection.

Punchline implication: for college, you should be prepared—don’t rely on only a single outcome.

Closing the Metaphor and Saying Goodbye

After the joke, the valedictorian returns to the cube image:

• “Turn those few sides” to finally solve it.

Then they shift into heartfelt graduation closure:

• They look ahead to laughing about the past later.
• They emphasize staying friends as lives change.
• They conclude by congratulating the West Hall High School Class of 2010 and thanking everyone who helped them get there.

Notable Jokes / Reactions

• Calling out that some classmates may zone out, then countering it with guitar music.
• Using the Rubik’s Cube metaphor for high school, including the idea that you “can’t turn around” without messing things up.
• The Pokémon cards aside.
• The exaggerated “college as proposing to one girl… secretly to backup chicks” analogy.
• Music/laughter moments punctuating key transitions.

People Mentioned

• Nathan Turner — provides the guitar/mood music.
• “Lance jabber” — referenced as the source for the college/proposal analogy.