Hi there, young Rhode Islander.

Congratulations on graduating high school and getting ready to enter the exciting world of adulthood. Although it might not be coming to you in your preferred form of media, we hope that you’ll see this letter at some point in the near future as you look ahead to what’s next for you.

While this achievement may seem to some of you like a mere formality on the way to bigger things, we hope you’ll take a moment to look back fondly on the past dozen years of schooling, or at least as a time in which you enjoyed a relative sense of freedom to find out a little more about who you are and what you want to offer to the world you are now encouraged to go explore.

You see, it’s likely that you’ve noticed a sort of magnifying lens that has been placed upon you and your peers throughout the last few years. A laser focus on your social development and educational achievements, and your relationship with emerging technology. A high level of scrutiny that hasn’t always resulted in kind things being said about you.

There is no question you’ve had to overcome a lot to get to where you are. Growing up with internal pressures from social media, hearing adults arguing about, well, just about everything, and let’s not forget about the pandemic that thrust you directly into the middle of one of the most disruptive, tumultuous and scary eras in recent human memory.

But instead of finding reasons to doubt the abilities and gumption of your generation, what we’re happy to report to you in this letter is that we’ve seen plenty of evidence of how well you have handled all those challenges, and how hopeful and excited you make us for a future that includes your contributions.

Where others have seen a generation crippled by social anxiety, we have seen adolescents, teenagers and young adults empathizing with and respecting their peers – regardless of their gender, sexual identity, religion, ethnicity or cognitive differences – unlike any generation before them. Where others have seen a generation preoccupied with their cellphones, we have seen a generation become more prepared than anyone else (including those adults pretending they know what the future holds in emerging technologies) to deal with whatever form those technologies take in the coming years.

While everyone else was hemming and hawing about your lack of preparedness or willingness to work in the world, we have seen you enthusiastically train in unprecedented numbers in Career and Technical Education programs, ensuring that our next generation of carpenters, chefs, artisans, mechanics, EMTs and countless other professions that make America run will be full of young, energetic and eager talent.

In many ways, dear young graduate, you have been battle tested unlike many generations before you. You have grown up under that unprecedented scrutiny, from loud external forces and from within your own ranks. You have heard the doubts about your ability to succeed in this difficult world since you were old enough to read.

Now is your chance — and what a beautiful opportunity it is — to go out and prove exactly what you can do.

We’ll be rooting for you every step of the way.