WATCH: Newest Phoenix grads Rise in the 2025 Spring Commencement Video

“As a First Generation student and daughter of a Veteran, it’s very powerful to be graduating with a college degree…”

“It’s not just my degree…my mom worked really hard to put me in the position I am now…”

“It feels amazing to be graduating…can’t wait to pass this education onto my students…”

These inspiring words are just a taste of what is a part of UW-Green Bay’s Spring 2025 Commencement Video. Watch the full video, below.

Go Phoenix!

Video produced by Sue Pischke, UW-Green Bay Videographer

Transcript: As a first-generation student, when I was starting college, I was undecided. I just knew that my mom worked really hard to put me in a position where I’m am now. It’s not just my degree, I’m not the only one who worked for it. I am extremely excited about my future. I’ve been recently accepted into graduate school, and I’m so glad that I’ve gotten the foundations here in order to prepare me for that. I feel like without the resources I’ve had at UW-Green Bay, I wouldn’t be able to have that foot in the door. It feels amazing to be graduating today with my History Major from UWGB. I’m most excited to take this education and pass it on to my students. I’m very excited to go out into the teaching field very very soon. I am proud to be a Phoenix because I have felt the most at home here on campus, and I’m very excited and very nervous to be spreading my wings afterwards. I’m so excited to be graduating. I’m the oldest out of all my siblings, so I’m the first to be graduating in that sense, so it’s just a really big accomplishment. As a first-generation student, it feels really good to graduate college and I feel like it’s opening up a lot of opportunities for me. My mom wasn’t able to get as many opportunities for jobs like even if she had the same like abilities as someone else having a college degree like really makes a step. It feels really exciting, I’ve worked really hard to graduate. Being a student athlete is definitely uh difficult, there’s a lot of things you have to overcome, but it was the most rewarding thing I did here at UWGB, and I met so many of my uh forever best friends through the swim team and through Athletics so. I’m very excited about my future. In the fall, I will be attending graduate school for School Psychology. As a first-generation student, it has been such a fantastic opportunity to be able to go to college as a daughter of a veteran as well. Opportunity to represent his services, um today, as a first-generation student as well. It’s very powerful to be graduating with a college degree today. I am so thankful that I was able to do this. As a first-generation student, I had an opportunity to go into the family business or go to school, but they wanted me to pursue better things. And, I know that my family really wanted me to go to college since they didn’t have the opportunity to. I feel great, I had an opportunity to take my board exams early for Nursing. I applied to Bellin and I got a job on the Observation Unit. I got my bachelor’s in Social Work last year, so the fact that I could do it in one year and get my master’s at 23 was such a joy. I’m very ready to be done, but I’ve loved my time here, and it’s been a great experience. Um, I was full-time, yeah, with an internship, two jobs, yeah, it was a lot of work, but definitely paid off. I have a full-time job lined up, so ready to roll right after graduation. Woo Go Phoenix! Go Phoenix! Go Phoenix! Go Phoenix! Go Phoenix!