Cena speaks to the specific experience of boarding school students who left home during their teenage years. While commencement speeches typically talk about 'the real world' graduates are about to enter, Cena focuses on what they've already survived. He knows from personal experience — he enrolled at Cushing as a junior after initially being rejected, coming back a year later with better grades as his coach instructed. Leaving your social circle as a teenager is an act of profound courage, he argues, and it puts these graduates 'head and shoulders above the rest.' Similar ceremonies are happening across the country, but these students started from scratch, made new friends, found themselves. The emotional tidal wave metaphor connects with any teenager who has ever felt the seismic impact of social disruption.