Do It Anyway: Jeannine Saady ’26’s Commencement Address

“We can all do more than we would ever believe.”

I want to start by saying thank you to everyone here. Faculty, staff, alumni, families, friends, and to the people who can’t be here, watching from home. We see you—all of you—showing up, full of support and pride for someone you love. Thank you.

And, to all the mothers here today, happy early Mother’s Day! I love you, Mom.

And, to my fellow graduates, we made it. We did it.

It is truly an honor to be standing here right now. This—all of this—means more to me than I can fully express. This is all a first for me.Not just giving a speech in front of 600 people—that’s definitely a first. And when I was first asked to do this, I completely froze. I’m sure I looked like a deer in the headlights. How many people? Talking about myself? Absolutely not.

There was a very immediate voice in my head that said, “Nope. No way. You can’t do that. There is no way you can do that.”

And at first I believed it.And then I had another thought: What better way to close this chapter here at Rollins than the same way it began—by doing something that scares me, by stepping into something I’ve never done before, and by challenging what I think I’m capable of.

So, here I am, giving a speech to all of you.

Truth be told, when I started this journey, I was not what anyone would consider an academic success. In fact, I was far from it.

There was a younger version of myself who was full of self-doubt. I had this inner monologue that was critical, constant, and very convincing. It told me I wasn’t good enough, not smart enough, that I was not capable. And I believed it.

When I was in elementary school, I struggled to learn how to read, spelling felt impossible, and math just made me want to cry. I was placed in special learning classes. And while I didn’t fully understand why, I did understand how other kids saw it. To them, it was the class for “dumb kids.”

I saw red marks covering all my assignments, I saw how worried my parents were, and I saw other kids succeeding where I just couldn’t. And my child self thought, “those kids must be right.”

At some point, the voice of those kids started becoming my own voice. And eventually I just stopped trying to make it any different.

By middle school, I had started skipping classes and hanging out with the “bad kids.” By high school, I had leaned into that identity completely. There was this undercurrent of anger, and I didn’t know why.

I barely graduated with the lowest GPA you can have and still walk across the stage to get your diploma. And I told myself I didn’t care, that school didn’t matter, that the whole thing just wasn’t for me.

But Idid care. I didn’t realize it at the time, but all that anger was therebecause I cared. I did want to do well—I just didn’t think I could. That inner voice kept telling me I couldn’t.

It took me 20 years to consider coming back to school. And during those years, I built a full life. I’ve traveled. I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve raised an incredible son. He is the coolest person I know, and I am in awe of him every single day.

I worked as a bartender for over 20 years. Built a career as a hairstylist for 17 years, running my own business. Being a bartender/hairstylist teaches you a lot about psychology. My clients came to know me as their hair-a-pist.

But then, in my 30s, something unexpected happened. Someone I worked with asked me, “Have you ever been checked for dyslexia?” She had seen me write out many things before. She noted the handwriting, the spelling, how I would randomly throw in capital letters, or the way I would flip numbers when I was adding up daily revenue.

She said, “Jeannine, you’re doing the math right—but you keep inverting numbers. You should really get checked for dyslexia.” And I thought: “Huh. Maybe.”

So, of course, I went home and did an assessment. And then another, and another, and later one more formal one just to be sure. And yeah, turns out, I have dyslexia.

But that moment—that realization—it changed everything.

I started thinking back to all the times I struggled in school and to that internal script, the one that told me I wasn’t smart or capable. I started to rethink it. I started to question it. And I thought that maybe—just maybe—it’s not true. Maybe I just see things differently. Maybe I just learn differently.

My parents had always believed in me. They have always had this unyielding belief in me—it blew my mind, and I pushed back against it. But they never gave up—even when I did.

That belief I carried, I had never shared with anyone. But with this new information, I started talking to a few trusted friends, and their reactions surprised me.None of them—not one—saw me the way I had seen myself.

One I have known since we were 15 years old and is now an English teacher, was actually very upset. He said he always thought I should have been a writer. Another lifelong friend said, “Wait, you really believed that about yourself? No way!” and reminded me I used to be interested in psychology.

Those conversations challenged something I had accepted as fact for most of my life, and they planted a seed. That seed grew and eventually led me here.

Part of my drive to come back to school was to take what I had learned as a bartender/hairstylist and apply it through the formal study of psychology, so I could really help people, but on a different level.

The other part of my drive was to challenge that inner voice—the one I had built my identity around. I wanted to prove it wrong.Coming back to school didn’t make that voice disappear. If anything, it got louder.

Every time I struggled—which was often—it was right there: “See, you can’t do this. Why do you think you can do this? This reading is going to take forever. You’re going to fail.”

But this time, I started responding differently. I started to think of how I would speak to a friend, to someone I cared about. I’d think, “Yeah, it is hard, but you can do it. Just have patience with yourself.” And sometimes I’d think: “Don’t tell me what I can’t do. Give it all you’ve got. Yeah, it’s hard. Do it anyway!”

And bit by bit, with every assignment, every chapter, and every exam—I proved that voice wrong.Over time, I realized something: That internal voice wasn’t the truth. It was never true. It was fear—fear of judgment, fear that if I really tried and failed, all of my insecurities would be confirmed. It was a story fear had told me about myself.

And I had started changing it. Not perfectly, not all at once—but intentionally.

The new inner voice—the one that is a friend—I had started leaning into that voice instead. And that shift didn’t just change how I approached school. It changed what I was willing to accept in my life—across the board.

But the thing is, if there is anything I have learned throughout my studies in psychology, it’s that we all have that inner voice. We all have that inner critic. Yours might be about something different than mine, but we have all got stuff—insecurities, struggles, fears.

So, if I can leave you all with one message today, it’s that when you hear that voice—your inner critic—don’t believe it. It’s just fear telling you a story about yourself. Challenge it. Don’t let it tell you what you can or cannot do. And keep trying.

Life will give us hard things—that’s life. Do the hard things anyway. Give it all you’ve got. And your inner voice—the one that is a friend—nurture that voice instead.

Because standing here as summa cum laude right now, doing something I’m afraid of, I know we can all do more than we would ever believe. And on the other side of that fear, you get to see exactly what you’re capable of.

So, Class of 2026, we did it, and we’ll keep doing it. Congratulations, and thank you.