Assistant professor of finance says continue to learn and invest in yourself, support your community–it will pay dividends

The following is an address made by William Morrison at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Midyear Commencement ceremony on December 14, 2024.

First of all, congratulations to all the graduates today. You have completed the next step in your learning journey! I always tell my students that what you learn in school is the beginning of your learning. We live in such a rapidly changing world that it's hard to imagine what life is going to be like even over a short period of time such as 5 or 10 years.

So, my first piece of advice is to continue learning. Attend conferences, network with others in your profession, get certifications, and read books. And don't be afraid to learn something new. You don't have to be great at something. Give it a shot anyway! I always try to encourage my kids to do new things. I tell them, even the slowest runner on the XC team is one of the best runners at the school.

I'm an investments guy. I run our Student Managed Endowment Fund program and I've got all of these fancy certifications. So, I'm going to give you some investment advice. Here is where you should invest your money. It's not Apple or Nvidia, it's not Berkshire Hathaway. The best place to invest is to invest in yourself. That's what we call human capital. The knowledge you learn will continue to pay dividends for the rest of your life.

My next piece of advice is to get involved. Whether you're interested in finance, history, nursing… or maybe helping the homeless or childhood cancer. There is a group out there in our community that meets to educate, support one another, and make a difference in our area. That group probably has a small group of core volunteers that make things happen. And I can almost guarantee you that they could use some help.

You might be thinking, I'm too young, I'm just graduating college. They want someone more knowledgeable than me. Well, I'm here to tell you that that's not the case. The person you are now is exactly who they want.

Many years ago I heard the story about the man walking along the beach one morning and he sees thousands of starfish washed up on the sand. He noticed a boy was picking up the starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. The man asked the boy what he is doing. The boy replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up to sea and they will die unless I throw them back in the water". The man said "there must be tens of thousands of starfish on the beach, I'm afraid you won't be able to make much of a difference." The boy bent down, grabbed a starfish, threw it into the ocean. He smiled and said, "it made a different to that one."

I've been to a lot of commencements over the years and some speeches have stuck with me more than others. We've got several hundred new graduates and thousands of guests. I'm not going to grab anyone and throw them into the water today, but I hope some of you out in the audience today are my starfish. And I hope you too go out and find some starfish.