Easy is forgettable. Think about it. Go ahead, this reflection will still be here. Whether you are from the Business School, Nursing School or the College, it is likely that the most memorable experiences you have had did not come about easily. It could be that time you finally worked up the courage to respond to questions from your freshman-year orientation leader to the time you signed your job offer for post-graduation. If there is one thing that Emory has taught me over th

e past four years, it is that the tough experiences are the most memorable, and the most important.

I am honored to be graduating with classmates that, despite the odds, are willing to rise to the challenge. This is by no accident, of course. Emory molds a tenacious bunch. Whether it be uncomfortably dancing at Songfest or riding miniature bikes during the Oxford Olympics, from day one we were tasked with rising to the challenge. If you’ve had the opportunity to read this very newspaper in the past year, you might recognize my name from an effort to change the way our student activity fee is allocated. It was a certainly tough and grueling experience that in the end did not yield the intended result. Do I regret spending time on the effort? Of course not. It was not easy, but it was certainly not forgettable.

After graduation, I will take with me the stories of friends and peers who jumped every hurdle to make it to May 13, 2019. From the classmate who checked Twitter every morning to see if his immigration status had changed to the friend who worked a full-time job to send money back home, it is these challenges and the thousands of others that help define the Class of 2019. It is these same challenges that will mint the next generation of leaders, leaders who are unafraid to change the world for the better.

Congratulations, Class of 2019 — I can’t wait to jump the next set of hurdles with you.

Jay is from Duluth, Ga., and served as the 2018-19 BBA Council president. After graduation, he will be in Atlanta working for PricewaterhouseCoopers as a management consultant.