"Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young", commonly known by the title "Wear Sunscreen", is an essay written as a hypothetical commencement speech by columnist Mary Schmich, originally published in June 1997 in the Chicago Tribune. The essay became the basis for a successful spoken word song released in 1999 by Baz Luhrmann, "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)", also known as "The Sunscreen Song". The song reached number one in Ireland and the United Kingdom and inspired numerous parodies.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_Sunscreen |
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Below is a version of this famous speech I created for the MEME Erasmus Mundus Masters Programme in Evolutionary Biology, a joint European mobility program I participated in from 2014-2016. Perhaps it may be of use to someone out there. (Graphic by Kim Holzmann)
🏙️🏜️🏖️🌄🏕️Wear Sunscreen (MEME edition)🚲🚗🚉🚢✈️
Travel. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, travel would be it. The long term benefits of traveling have been proved by scientists and specifically evolutionary biologists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Photo: First group photo of the 2014-2016 MEME cohort taken at a youth hostel in Groningen, Netherlands during the 2016 MEME summer school. |
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; or never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in only about 6 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine. Metabolism really starts slowing down after the mid-20s and beer, turns out, has a lot of calories.
Photo: My 23rd birthday with MEMEs and other international students at Winschoterdiep, a large international student house in Groningen, Netherlands. Chaos quickly ensued. |
Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an Evolutionary Stable Strategy by pipetting. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 3 AM on your way home from De Zolder, De Drie Gezusters, Panama Café, Rockstore, or one of the Student Nations. Like a drunk student on a bike, or, if you are the drunk student on a bike, a car.
Do one thing every day that scares you, hopefully more. Photo: MEMEs and other evolutionary biology students at one of our many international potlucks in Groningen, Netherlands. |
Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, especially since you probably won't be staying long; don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours, especially since you probably won't be staying long. Relationships during MEME will not be easy to say the least.
Floss. Photo: MEMEs and friends celebrating American Thanksgiving 2014 starting with a giving of thanks in Winschoterdiep, a large international student house in Groningen, Netherlands |
Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. Some will start a Ph.D. right after MEME with a big prestigious scholarship, some will take their time getting there, and some will find something else to do all together. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. Academia is competitive so be mindful of your mental health. Don't let anything distract you from taking care of yourself.
Photo: Properly celebrating the end of the first semester in winter 2014 at the MEME room of the Linneasbourg, University of Groningen. |
Remember the compliments you receive from your classmates and supervisors; forget the criticisms of your presentations and the nasty reviews of your manuscripts. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters from people you'll meet around the world. Throw away the ludicrous amounts of junk like old bank statements and cellphone bills you'll accumulate from living in so many places in such a short amount of time. Stretch and exercise. Healthy body, healthy mind. Photo 1: Making dumplings to celebrate Chinese New Year 2015 in the Vert Bois student residence of the University of Montpelllier, France. Photo 2: MEMEs and friends not actually knowing how to make dumplings, which turned out three times the size they were supposed to be and exploded in the pots. We made such a mess that they locked the kitchen for two weeks. Yup, I learned they can do that in France. |
Meet plenty of friends.
Be kind to your classmates, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll find a partner during MEME, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll publish papers during MEME, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll drop out of your Ph.D. Maybe you’ll become a world famous evolutionary biologist. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s. Enjoy yourself. Use your days every way you can. Don’t be afraid, or what other people might think of you. You will grow incredibly in these next couple of years, and the people who will still be in your life afterwards won't care about the stupid things you did during MEME. Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room because of COVID. Photo 1: MEMEs on a trip from Montpellier, France to Barcelona, Spain via BlaBlaCar guided by a native Catalan MEME. Photo 2: MEMEs on a road trip from Montpellier, France to Genova, Italy guided by a native Genovese MEME. |
Read the papers, even if you don’t cite them
(and especially if you do!). Do not use too much social media; you've got much better things to do than endlessly comparing yourself to others. Some will be necessary to keep in touch with friends, especially during and after MEME. But use it sparingly and wisely. Photo: MEMEs finishing up the second semester in spring 2015 at the University of Montpellier. |
Be nice to your cohort; they will be your best link to your MEME years and the people most likely to collaborate with and cite you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go as you come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Photo: MEMEs flash mobbing the last train of the U-Bahn during the 2015 MEME summer school in Munich, Germany. |
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young, naïve, and just a bit crazy during MEME.
Live in Boston once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Montpellier once, but leave before it makes you soft. Photo: MEMEs hanging out at Englischer Garten during the 2015 MEME summer school in Munich, Germany. |
Accept certain inalienable truths: prices will be high in Sweden and Switzerland, Montpellier administration will be a nightmare, you too will get old -- and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, approval of external projects were easy, administration in the Netherlands was incredibly efficient, and MEMEs respected their elders.
Respect your MEME elders.😉 Photo: The ÄÅÖ team at the 2015 10K Uppsala Studentlopp in Uppsala, Sweden. |
Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a MEME scholarship, maybe you come from Germany and your government values education; but you know all scholarships and fellowships will eventually run out. Don’t work too hard for perfect grades, by the time you're 28, you won't give a shit. Photo: MEMEs and friends celebrating my 23rd birthday at the Rackarbergsgatan student residence in Uppsala, Sweden. |
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth. But trust me on travelling. There's no better time than MEME. 😊 Photo: MEMEs on a camping trip up north, beyond the Arctic circle in Kiruna, Sweden. |
Photo: Graduation ceremony of the 2014-2016 cohort of the MEME Erasmus Mundus Programme in Evolutionary Biology at the Erken Laboratory on Lake Erken in Norrtälje, Sweden.