Liz Gerger is honored to be the graduate valedictorian of Academy of Art University’s Class of 2025!
Hailing from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Gerger spent eight years in New York as a licensing designer for Nickelodeon before pursuing her M.F.A. in visual development at ArtU.
Gerger earned 1st Place in Design for Animation, Runner-Up for Character Design, and Best in Show 2024 at ArtU’s School of Visual Development Spring Show. Her place on the board of Tea Time Animation allowed her to help foster ArtU’s creative community and uplift her talented peers.
Grateful for the support of her family, mentors, and instructors, Gerger plans to continue her work with Disney Theatrical Productions while pursuing key art, character design, and developing her own stories. Gerger aspires to one day helm a major studio animated musical feature.
Gerger delivered the following speech to this year’s class of graduating students.
What an honor it is to speak to a room full of MASTERS!
Before I begin, I need to tell you I gave birth to my first child a couple weeks ago and haven’t slept since. If I seem slightly unhinged, don’t worry, I am.
But we’ve all just given birth, right? We’ve gestated our skills. Our last semester has been a sort of labor. We’ve shed blood, sweat, and tears to deliver our thesis. And just when we think we’re done, someone hands us a baby with limited instructions on what to do from here.
But what if the most valuable thing you have to offer the world isn’t any of your artistic skills?
Before you attack me, I want to share a story.
For most of my 20s, I had a job that a million designers would kill for at a very popular entertainment company. When asked the question, “So, what do you do for work?” I could watch others be instantly impressed and never have to admit that I was utterly miserable.
There was this nagging voice in the back of my head screaming at me that I was more than just my skills. That I might even have something to say… How inconvenient!
I tried everything, but no amount of side-hustling, body-building, or dieting would make the voice go away.
The only thing left to do was to trust it.
Now here we are—stepping out from the safety of school into a world of uncertainty.
But I have three pieces of really good news:
Number one is that self-trust is a muscle that can be built. The more we exercise it, the easier it gets.
The day I quit my very cool job, it felt like I had just jumped off a cliff. Little did I know that it would allow me to truly meet myself for the first time. When faced with uncertainty, knowing and trusting deep down that we’ll be ok—that’s the difference between falling and flying.
Good news number two: Resilience never feels good.
“Liz, that’s NOT good news!” It IS! Because the times in our lives when we have to be the most resilient are the ones we’ll look back on with the most pride.
While my old colleagues started families and got promotions, I was watching my savings account dwindle and painting so many still-lifes I wanted to scream.
My husband—bless him—would have to mop me up from a puddle multiple times a week… Until I started seeing pieces of my soul in my work, and eventually winning awards.
Resilience is marketed as strength, but when we’re actually being resilient, it feels a lot like weakness.
It’s the part of our favorite character’s story when all seems lost and they find the grit to keep going.
So if after graduation it feels like we’re riding the “struggle bus,” we’re well on our way to becoming our own favorite character.
And finally, good news number three: Our skills are the least Interesting thing about us.
“That’s a weird thing to say to a room full of masters, Liz, I busted my ass for these skills!”
And you did! And you’re very good. But how good? Good enough to be paid what you’re worth when AI can do it instantly and for free? Maybe. For now.
But what happens when our skills lose value?
This school showed me that my story is the most valuable thing I have to offer. It’s our unique perspective and human crunchiness that make our work distinctly ours.
Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is the name we give to our mistakes.”
If that’s true, my time at ArtU has made me so grateful for the years I spent doing the wrong thing. For the pain and deep insecurities that made me feel like I needed to be something I wasn’t.
There’s no algorithm for that experience.
So, as I stand before you held together by duct tape and caffeine, I’m telling you that our unique perspective is the one thing that cannot be taken away from us. That it is our duty as artists to have the most human experience we possibly can. To trust ourselves, to be resilient, and to have a story.
Thank you for sharing this part of your story with me. I’m looking forward to seeing what we do next.
Congratulations, Class of 2025!