GSU student Peter Brassea selected as a 2022 commencement speaker
Graduate Profile: Peter Brassea
Social Work major Peter Brassea spent a long time working on the speech he will deliver at the evening commencement ceremony for GSU's College of Health and Human Services and College of Education graduates. There, Brassea, who is the first in his immediate family to graduate college, hopes to inspire his fellow graduates, by sharing how he overcame family tragedies.
GSU Newsroom: How did it feel to be selected as a commencement speaker?
Brassea: I'm grateful to university officials for selecting me. At the same time, I am feeling a tad nervous at the prospect of speaking before so many people. But, I’ve said this year I wanted to do things that take me out of my comfort zone. This is one of them. I'm hoping to motivate at least one person in the room. Maybe a potential college student one day. Also, it’s a good opportunity for me to give back to my family, professors, all the people at GSU, to say, ‘Thank you’ in a different way.”
GSU Newsroom: What is a message from your speech that you hope will inspire the audience?
Brassea: Early on in the speech, I will quote the famous scientist Albert Einstein, who once said, “Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will get you everywhere. That’s something personal I feel. It’s about degrees and stuff, but it’s about the bigger picture, how you do things, how you get through stuff. That’s why I put it in the beginning. Also, I want to share how I worked through the pain of losing my mother at an early age to achieve my dreams.
GSU Newsroom: What's next after graduation?
Brassea: After earning my master’s degree in social work, my future is wide open. So that’s what I’m trying to figure out now. I’m actually in the process of applying to a few jobs. I’m not 100 percent sure I want to work right away. I’m applying to a school actually. I'm thinking of working in a school setting for a year before returning to college to work on my doctorate.