Graduation address: Professor Richard White, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
Wednesday 2 July 2025 – morning ceremony
Vice-Chancellor, invited guests, colleagues and graduates.
When I was asked to give this address, I naturally cast my mind back a number of decades to my own graduation to try to remember what it meant to me at the time. Alas, time has eroded much of that memory, but I do remember an incredible sense of both achievement and relief that I got through university successfully.
I do, however, have much more vivid memories of the four years I spent doing that degree, my classmates, my teachers, topics I loved and topics I loathed, parties and, of course, exams.
This, of course, is part of the understanding that it is not just the graduation that matters in a degree but the journey getting there and, as you will come to discover, the journey afterwards. For today’s graduates sitting before me you have no doubt had time to reflect on the former, and will soon embark on the latter with a degree in hand.
We live in a world where, at least for those of us with the privilege to grow up in a stable and prosperous country, more and more people each year graduate with degrees from universities. Some might and some have seen this as a devaluing of a university degree. We have seen talk in the press and by political leaders about the value or worth of a degree, some even going as far as to categorise degrees into monetary values or vocational potential. But this fundamentally misses an incredibly important point in education and gaining a degree, and that is you, and what you will do with this education – what you learn in university goes far beyond simply a subject.
Some of you will use this degree in a very direct vocational way, others will use what they have learned in areas potentially far away from the subject they studied. Others, like those who gained a Masters or PhD today, have already started to build on the value of their first degree and are no doubt looking at what to do next. The road before you all is open, but for many of you who have ever driven in Fife, you will know there are many crossroads, not to mention potholes, along the way.
So what is the value of your degree?
If you are waiting on some wisdom here, I am afraid you are going to be bitterly disappointed. I do not know the answer to this question. Much of that story has not yet been written and it is yours to write. You have gained an education, and now a degree, and each of you will use this experience in different ways throughout your life.
Soon you will be going out into an ever-changing world, a world faced with distinct challenges, such as climate change, limited resources, and a precarious social, economic, political and moral tapestry. A world where opinion and arrogance too often trump fairness, thoughtfulness and fact. A world where I believe fairness, thoughtfulness and fact are as important as they have ever been, but also as fragile. It will be down to those who understand these challenges to help us navigate them. I believe all of you are part of that group.
If I was to compare the world that I walked out into after university with the one that you will enter, I see a world that has got both smaller with the rise of systems such as the Internet and the speed of communication, but also a world that has become much bigger in which there is more information, more truths and more lies freely available for anyone who seeks them.
So, if I am going to attempt to give you advice for the future, it would be to take the time to step back from what can seem to be an avalanche of information and misinformation, draw on the analytical skills you will take away from your degree, and approach everything as objectively as you can. That way you are drawing on the value of your degree and, more importantly, the value of your education. And this is where I believe the value of a degree truly lies.
So finally, congratulations and I wish you all the best for your future endeavours.