“Parker Hudson has sage advice for college and university students who are searching for their place in this chaotic world. I invited Parker to speak to my Honors College students earlier this fall when he gave the following talk “As a High-Achieving, Successful, Type-A Honors Student, What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Graduated from College.”

An engaging and lively speaker, Parker’s message is clear and forthright: all the academic and scholarly success will amount to nothing unless you live an intentional and morally sound life. Parker Hudson is no preacher; nor is he some self-righteous know-it-all. Rather, he speaks from personal experience as someone who travelled the road of academic success (he is a summa cum laude graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar) who sometime during his mid-thirties as a successful businessman, husband and father of five stopped and asked himself “what is this all about?”

During the session he challenged the students, and several of them challenged him. My take was that even those who did not agree with everything Parker said were forced to reconsider—the gravitas of Parker’s experience and presence required it.

Parker draws from his life’s lessons and candidly speaks about social and moral issues and topics – topics which he wished someone would have spoken to him about as a college student.”

Paul A. Harris, Ph.D.
Associate Director &
Associate Professor of Political Science
The University Honors College
200 Cater Hall
Auburn University, AL 36849
https://auburn.edu/honors