“Tap your imaginations as you apply what you have learned here and forge your career paths.”

Dr. Michael J. Reed, president of Pennsylvania College of Technology, offered this advice as our region’s 2023 commencements began.

“Please consider doing less computing and more dreaming,” Alicia Tillman, chief marketing officer for Delta Airlines and commencement speaker for Lycoming College advised the graduates. “Less routine and more flights of fancy.”

We agree whole-heartedly with this advice. We hope all of our region’s graduates — college and high school — will discover the important role that creativity and imagination play in solving problems.

For one, as Tillman noted, imagination will help our future generations be more well-rounded people who have a greater understanding of their strengths and abilities.

Also, the problems these graduates will encounter as they enter the workforce and continue to the next phases of their lives are not simple problems with simple solutions. If they were, many of these problems would have already been solved. As our world continues to become more complex, confronting the challenges of the future will require more complex thinking.

Our world will need more creative thinking.

And so, we appreciate the advice Reed and Tillman shared with our colleges’ classes of 2023. We hope the graduates take their words to heart. And we hope our high school graduates hear and take to heart excellent advice at the commencement ceremonies coming in the next several weeks.

– Williamsport Sun-Gazette