Stories from the Class of 2023: A life-altering experience

Daniel DiSalvo reflects on his educational journey, emphasizing the importance of stepping out of his comfort zone.

Daniel DiSalvo of Canandaigua graduated on May 20 with a degree in liberal arts. He is a 2021 graduate of Canandaigua Academy. He shared some thoughts recently on his FLCC experience, which he calls “life-altering.”

What are your plans after graduation?

I plan on spending this summer in my hometown with my friends enjoying my time off before I move down to Wilmington, N.C. to take a gap year with ambitions on continuing to pursue a bachelor’s degree.

What has been the most rewarding part of your experience and why?

The journey. The whole time I’ve been a student here at Finger Lakes Community College I thought my reward and goal would be graduation, the day I get to walk across the stage and get my diploma. I dedicated every day I had at Finger Lakes Community College for this day. Along the way I took up as many opportunities as I could. While at Finger Lakes in my athletic life I competed in multiple sports such as Track and Field, Lacrosse, and the Woodsmen team even making school history by helping the men’s track and field team to win the school’s first ever regional championship for that program last spring. Aside from athletics, in my academic life I achieved a lot such as becoming the president of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society, making the All-State USA academic team, and raising my GPA up from when I started here at a 3.7 to finishing with a 3.85.

I also got the chance to see a lot more of what else is outside of my world of the college campus and my hometown of Canandaigua. For example, I won a raffle for tickets to the Buffalo Bills vs. the Miami Dolphins game this past Fall where I had the chance to tailgate and crash some tables, but also watch my NFL team kick some butt on their homefield under the lights while it was snowing. For the Phi Theta Kappa honor society, I had the chance to be flown out to Columbus, Ohio for the annual catalyst event where there were over 30,000 members attending. While there I was able to tour Ohio State University.

All these different experiences, achievements, medals, and awards with my name on it, all of this I achieved in just two years. When I was working hard and trying new things at school here, I didn’t care about medals or going down in history books or any of that tangible stuff, I just wanted to do what I thought was the right thing and all those achievements were just extra bonuses I got from my hard work. I may be the one talking now about my journey, but it’s not just me that’s walking across this stage.

We celebrate everyone who is a student here at Finger Lakes Community College: Business, Environmental Science, Communications, Healthcare, and every other major. Everyone here is gathered for one purpose and that’s not only to celebrate our academic achievements and success, but to reflect on our journeys here. For the sophomores such as myself here, two years of our lives we dedicated our time and effort into this one school each with our respective majors and here we are now about to graduate. Goals achieved and diplomas received, everyone had their own journey, yet all of us have experienced loss. As most of us know life isn’t always about winning there’s a lot of loss, but as we students know one thing it’s how to get up and keep going, how to buckle down and get ready for the next class, next assignment, next exam, and maybe even next semester.

My journey here has been the most rewarding part of my experience here at Finger Lakes, not because of the achievements and awards, but because of the adventures I got to go on and the people I met along the way. I got to know so many different people coming from all sorts of walks of life. Professors, students, faculty, and staff alike. During my time here I had to overcome so many obstacles and I’ve grown so much as a person, yet none of this would’ve been possible if it weren’t for the people beside me such you all gathered here with me today that helped me along my adventure.

Our time here at Finger Lakes has come to an end, yet the lives we impacted and the things we’ve achieved will always remain with myself those who got to be with us and help us along our journey. It’s easy to give up, it’s easy to be lazy and do things just for yourself. Where it’s hard is when it’s time to wake up and get to work. To wake up and do things for others. It’s hard to dedicate your time and effort to helping others without looking to get anything for yourself. Speaking for myself, I did a pretty dang good job here and I’m excited for what adventure awaits me tomorrow, but for today we all should thank those who helped us along the way. We must thank Finger Lakes Community College for providing us with a place of opportunity and unity for us to come together and chase our dreams, allowing us to achieve greatness along the way. We must thank our professors, faculty, and staff for helping us along our journeys making this college be as great as it is. For athletes such as myself, we must thank our coaches for dedicating their time and effort into believing in us and our athletic abilities allowing us to achieve what they knew we were capable of, finally we must thank our parents for raising us and being our biggest supporters as they will always be there for us in our lives. Thank you, Finger Lakes Community College, we are grateful for everything you have done for us and will continue to do so as we all go on to our next journey.

What advice would give to a new student?

If I were to give a piece of advice to everyone here whether they’re graduating, transferring, or returning in the fall, I just got this here to say:
Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. Someone who isn’t willing to give up everything will never change anything. While attending Finger Lakes Community College I made the choice to give up who I thought I was, for what I knew I could become. It’s easy to be a good person and help others along your way. We may be at the same school together, pursuing the same major, on the same team, or in the same class, yet everyone here is on a different adventure of their own. Just because we’re all on our own adventures going for different dreams doesn’t mean you can’t give some of your time to step out of your way to help someone achieve theirs. You’ll find you may get more in life from doing that then doing nothing at all. I believe that not only for this school, but in this world it’s better to try and do something than nothing.