Sean Ahern (CAS ’14) returns to give BU Sociology’s 2024 commencement address
Sean Ahern is a practicing legal services attorney and a BU Law Class of 2017 alumnus. Sean is currently a senior attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services and a part-time lecturer at BU Law. At BU, Sean teaches courses in legal research & writing and in legal interviewing and client counseling. He has also published articles in law journals. Sean is experienced as a litigator in a range of legal aid practice areas. His experience and research interest is largely in landlord-tenant and other housing matters, but Sean has also has provided civil legal aid in employment, immigration, consumer debt, and government benefits cases. He currently works primarily with elderly clients facing eviction. He also has experience running his own business, and finding a new pathway after starting at a large corporate firm.
Below is the full text of Sean’s speech to our graduating seniors on May 19, 2024.
Welcome everyone – it’s a true honor and a pleasure to be here. Let me be one of many today to say congratulations.
Now please allow me a cliche to set the scene for what I would like to speak with you all about today. I remember sitting where you all are, ten years ago, in May 2014. To put that year in geopolitical context… I got my first smart phone that year. Back then, that was a big deal.
Anyways – I remember the feeling of the day… vividly. And it wasn’t a great feeling… In fact, the feeling was so noticeably bad that – given a certain quality of my face which doesn’t allow me to mask emotions well, Prof. Brown Saracino came up to me after the ceremony. She came up to me personally asked me: “Is everything okay?” She said: “You did not look happy.”
Now here’s the reality, to which I believe many of you might be able to relate – I was feeling lost and anxious on graduation day. I’m sure that not only the students but also the parents out there can relate to that feeling. For me, college had been hard – real hard. Now I can’t pretend to know what hard actually is when you all were the first class since 1918 to start college during a global pandemic… But nevertheless it was *hard* for me. I struggled financially. I struggled emotionally. I struggled socially. I struggled with my identity. It was a #struggle. (Yeah, that’s how we used to talk back in 2014.) College was a culture shock – graduation was a culture shock.
So, when Prof. Brown-Saracino asked me this question about how I was doing on nearly this exact day 10 years ago, do you know what I said? I said: “How am I supposed to be happy when you all invited a police officer to be the graduation speaker? You spent years pumping us all full of ideas about oppressive systems and resistance. And, honestly, if I wanted to be a cop and not to reform the criminal Justice system, I would’ve just stayed where I grew up and not gone through this whole college thing! Agh!” In hindsight, that was a bit obnoxious, but – c’mon – I was a social science student, and this was the “tumblr era” as it’s now known. And please let’s also not pretend like the TikTok generation is any less quick to judge…
Nevertheless, with ten years of hindsight, I realize what was going on with me that day. I was struggling. I was struggling to put all of the values that I had cultivated during my years as a student of sociology into a concrete plan for the future. And in my own rumination and judgment, I missed an important lesson from that particular graduation speaker. The degree that I held in my hands that day: it didn’t close doors – it opened them. Sure, I didn’t have to be a cop, but I also didn’t have to be a literal sociologist either. (No offense to the esteemed faculty here.) Sitting here 10 years ago, I truly had no idea what options I had in front of me – I was lost and anxious for precisely that reason.
Here’s the big takeaway: I didn’t realize I had *choices*. And on that theme of choices, there are three lessons that I want to leave you all with today.
Lesson number one I call: “Barista is not the only option.”
Well it’s public information that social sciences were rated the college majors with the second lowest salary post graduation. And, it’s no secret that the post-grad job market is hard right now. Now I’m not saying barista is not a good option – I do love coffee… And I mean you all are part of the generation that finally unionized Starbucks. But, honestly, sitting in this auditorium on graduation day, all I could think to myself was that the only options available to me with a sociology degree were service sector jobs with little pay, little security, and little room for growth.
But, boy, was I wrong… I had choices – this degree opened doors. There were jobs with city and state government, jobs with think tanks and non-profits, jobs with tech companies – and many more. And, despite these options, all I could think was that, with this degree in my hands, I would be right back to where I was at 14-years-old making a Dunkachino and handling the drive-thru window at 8am on a Saturday morning… Except this time, I would be handing over a $6 latte and my coworkers would have tasteful tattoos. Wow, was I wrong…
This brings me to my second lesson – one that hits pretty close to home. Folks… Law school is not the only option.
I get it: Sociology degree, good grades, the job market is scary, and the only non-Barista positions available seem very competitive (or are literally saying that they are looking for someone with 5-10 years experience). Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple path into what is generally considered a stable and well paying profession? Wouldn’t it be great to just give up control, and a few hundred thousand dollars, leaving the next few years in the hands of an esteemed law school? Sure maybe – but also let’s take a moment to reflect…
In my case, sitting in your seats on graduation day, I was already locked in and mentally committed to law school. I only had about three months off, and then I was destined to start three straight years of nothing but studying the law. Sitting there, thinking to myself that barista was the only alternative to another three years of intense (and expensive) higher education, I really didn’t see another option. But again I had choices – I had choices that I didn’t even know about.
I had the choice to explore whether I even liked what lawyers do before going to school to become one! Surprise, surprise! Growing up where I did hardly anyone’s parents had four-year college degrees, let alone law degrees I didn’t know the first thing about being a lawyer. But guess what? There were opportunities to learn. There were opportunities I didn’t even realize. There were jobs as paralegals, case assistants, investigators – you name it. There were also other higher-ed paths that I didn’t even consider – paths that could lend themselves to the social change that I wanted to make. Masters of public policy? Clinical social worker? Getting into a fully funded PhD program in the social sciences, getting the masters, and then dropping out? Truly I did not realize that I had so many options that weren’t the two that most immediately came to mind
And now that brings me to my third and final lesson that I want to leave you all with today. Your first option is not the only option…
Remember that whole law school thing I said I was so committed to when I was sitting in this auditorium ten years ago? Yeah, it’s been a wild ride since… But perhaps the ride would have been a little less bumpy if I had realized that, at 21-years old, I didn’t have to make one single choice that I was committing to for the rest of my life. And neither do you! Trust me: there’s time to explore. Heck, I went straight into three years of law school right after graduation, and even I took time to explore. It’s never too late.
I went into law school thinking I would be a public defender. I came out as a big law firm corporate attorney. Then I pivoted to backpacking Latin America and starting an online tutoring business. Then, due to a global pandemic and housing crisis, I ended up in legal aid doing eviction defense. Eventually I started teaching law students how to practice. Now I’m doing both. And who knows what will come next! This was all since 2017! If I had thought my first option was my only option, I would have ended up as a burnt-out criminal defense attorney or an even more burnt-out Biglaw associate. But even more than that: If I had just realized – sitting where you all are today – that my first option of law school was not my only option, I may have slowed the whole process down, and I may have taken a different path entirely.
So, if there’s one thing I can leave you all with today… it’s that you got options! Whatever the limited options you feel you have now, I can promise you that there are more around the corner, just waiting for you to figure them out. I would encourage each and every one of you to take a moment today to look inside yourselves. Ask yourselves: What is it that you really want to explore – even if it’s not a forever thing? What do you want to do while you’re still young? What do you want to do before you’re in my shoes, ten years out from your college graduation, looking back on this moment?
You have options, and if you keep that in mind, your future self will thank you for exploring them. Unlike what I thought sitting in your shoes 10 years ago, you’re on the edge of starting a chapter of choice. And, hey, even if your first choice doesn’t work out, there will be time to try again the next time. Trust me, I can relate.
So, Class of 2024 – I’m wishing you the best in making the choice as to whatever comes next. Thank you and congratulations.
