Never stop learning and remain curious

113 young students of the Lucerne School of Information Technology had their bachelor or master’s degrees conferred on them at a ceremony at the Theater Casino in Zug on Friday.

In giving the first speech on the occasion, the director of the school, René Hüsler, told the assembled graduates, "all wishing to emulate Steve Gates” that they should never give up learning and always remain curious.

The guest speaker at the ceremony was Beat Wullschläger, the proprietor and managing director of the Wilhelm Schmidlin AG bath-manufacturing company in Oberarth in the neighbouring canton of Schwyz. He told the students that it was not the facts they had learned over the years on their courses but the skills they had acquired. He also reminded them, echoing Hüsler, that, while they had successfully completed their courses, they still had much to learn.

In all, 65 young men and women graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees from the school, which is part of the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and located in Rotkreuz, with a further 46 graduating with bachelor degrees in information systems.

Two students were awarded Master of Science degrees in engineering, one of whom, Daniel Pfäffli of Zofingen in the canton of Argovia, was presented with a CHF 1,000 prize sponsored by Roche Diagnostics International for his outstanding dissertation.

Two other students, Dominik Witschard of Zurich and Silvan Sigrist from Zug won the IBM Schweiz prize for their degree theses and for their above-average attainment over the course of their studies.

Most of the graduates on this occasion were men, but it was Alexandra Lengen who was asked to give a brief account of her time at the school. The 28-year-old looked back very fondly on a six-week period she had been able to spend in Silicon Valley in California, where she was able to work on projects as well as attend lectures at the St Clara University, culminating her speech by thanking the staff and fellow students of the Rotkreuz campus. “What we have studied is very much a subject at the cutting-edge. Exciting times await us all.”

The photograph shows Pascal Steiner of Root in the canton of Lucerne being congratulated by his mother Marisa and father Armin.