24 May Graduation 2019 – New destinations and challenges await
Tomorrow, the Class of 2019 graduates – a time of celebration – a day of great pride and accomplishment! Our graduates have come a long way and reached the end of a journey – their school days are over and now new journeys and new destinations await. Throughout life they will face this challenge time and again – the challenge of endings and beginnings, sunsets and sunrises. Our lives are marked by a handful of watershed moments. They signify a seismic shift in our existence – the first day at school, starting work (and spending your first pay-cheque), marriage, the birth of a child, retirement. But few of these milestones are shared with as many people and so deeply as graduation.
Graduation is a collective experience which marks the culmination of many years’ determination and development. Some of the students graduating tomorrow first walked through the school gates as little more than toddlers. Tomorrow they leave as adults – inspired by an education which has elicited their greatness and equipped them to make their mark in the world.
Graduation is also a time of mixed emotions – the joy of celebration and the sadness of farewell. While they will always be the Class of 2019, after tomorrow they will spread out across the world to follow their dreams and passions.
This class has secured outstanding university and college offers at some of the leading academic institutions around the world – including selective universities and liberal arts colleges. Forty percent of the class has been offered financial aid worth in excess of US $1.5 million. The average support is approximately $20,000 and four students have received individual awards worth over $50,000.
Nearly half the class (49%) is headed for North America, one in five to Europe (20%), 15% to universities elsewhere (India 7%, rest of Asia 8%, rest of the world 3%) and the remainder have chosen to broaden their horizons on a gap year. Their subjects of choice, from artificial intelligence to molecular biology and international relations to industrial and organizational Psychology, show a diverse range of passion interests fitting for the global citizens Woodstock aspires to shape.
We have immense pride in the accomplishments of this talented group of young people, whose collective confidence and potential are captured by their class motto, ‘Imperium’, meaning ‘supreme power’.
Wherever life takes them, my hope and prayer is that Woodstock has given them the foundations to face the challenges that lie before them and thrive! They can take courage from all they have accomplished here and they can be confident in their potential to attain any goals to which they strive. They have worked hard, acquired values which will serve them and others well, and made good friends to whom they will be bonded for life. And no matter how far they travel, I’m sure a piece of each one’s heart will forever remain at Woodstock!
Dr Jonathan Long, Principal
Stuart Dunbar Robertson
Posted at 03:28h, 17 JuneI attended Woodsrock in 1951. Just one year because we had just come from the USA and, dare I say, my older bother was frightfully homesick. So,after one year we were pulled out and sent to another boarding school in Madya Pradesh, a small school put together by a few mission agencies in Chikada, in the Vindya range of mountains. Though at the time my brother found it difficult, we both have fond memories of our time there, We remember collecting beetles, and walking mountain trails. We took a long hike with our dad to a shrine back in the footills, a playground for snow leopards–a trek that was far more arduous than we anticipated. A nephew of mine is being considered for faculty position there, which I hope materializes for your sake and for his. He is a remarkable young man. I might say we ended our boarding school days at Breeks,in Ooty, in Tamil Nadu. My career has been spent in teaching, ancient history and languages at Purdue University. Send us some of your eager yoing graduates!