I actually wrote the outline for this post a couple of years ago, but with my (second) college graduation actually in the foreseeable future I thought it would be a good time to actually put it down on paper (in the figurative sense; no trees were harmed in the making of this blog).
I have been to four college graduations that I can remember and would have gone to none of them if they weren’t for immediate family members (or myself) being in them. Since I had to be there I decided to try to pay attention to what was going on and came to the conclusion that college graduations are pretty much pointless. Here’s why:
1. There is lots of symbolism, but no one knows what it means. Gowns, caps, tassels, Masters and Doctorate hoods. Does anyone really know what any of this stuff means? I’m all for upholding tradition, but maybe the College or University could put a little blurb in their programs about this stuff so people can actually appreciate it. I fear, though, that not even many people that work for the Universities know what any of these things symbolize, so they can’t explain it to the rest of us.
2. As the grads walk in, annoying family and friends yell and scream, expecting the grad to be able to see them. Are people really that stupid to think the grads can see or hear them in a giant auditorium full of thousands of people?
3. When the names of the grads are being read, even after explicitly being told not to cheer until the end, people cheer way too loud and long. Dozens of grads’ names are not heard because the family of the previous grad is still cheering.
4. Similar to #3: when the names are being read, people blow airhorns and ring cowbells. At my brother-in-law’s graduation someone rang a cowbell during the Doctorate announcements, another person blew an airhorn during the Masters announcement, and at least ten more people blew airhorns during the Bachelors announcements. How is it that so many people think they have to make total fools of themselves, embarrass the grads, and annoy everyone in the entire auditorium?
5. Dumb awards. Five or six awards are given out (at least at the graduations I’ve been to) to people who I am sure are deserving of them, but does the time of thousands of people really need to be wasted presenting something that only the recipient and their family and friends really care about? If the awards were presented as fast as the diplomas I wouldn’t have a problem with them, but each award takes 5-15 minutes to talk about, present, and accept.
6. Boring, pointless speeches. The Chancellor gives a speech, the Valedictorian gives a speech, the student body president gives a speech, the award recipients give speeches, the guest speaker/honorary celebrity gives a speech, the captain of the football team gives a speech…OK, maybe not the football captain, but you get the idea. Lots of people give speeches, which in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that they all same the same friggin thing: “Your hard work has paid off, now go out there and do the best you can. And remember you not only represent yourself, but your family, friends and this University.” The only speaker who said anything different was the guest speaker at my brother-in-law’s graduation who droned on about how mankind was going to meet its doom, and our doom was coming sooner rather than later. I thought the speech was kind of intriguing, because I forced myself to actually listened to it, but he had such a dry and monotonous delivery that 99% of the crowd tuned him out after less than a minute.
7. No connection between the grads. When I graduated college I didn’t know one single person out of the hundreds (thousands?) that were graduating with me. I realize I’m a special case because I left college for a few semesters and came back. But, even if I had graduated with the class I started with I would have known maybe 50 people, and only 10 of them by name. Not like my high school graduation where I could name all 242 other people graduating with me.
8. Dissertation and thesis titles. A few of them can be kind of funny, but ultimately they are just 5-50 jargon words strung together that most people outside that specialized field of study don’t understand. I consider myself a pretty smart person with a fairly large vocabulary, but I could maybe tell you what half of the titles meant. If Universities insist on publishing the dissertations and theses of the masters and doctorate grads, at least give a little 2-3 sentence blurb about what it means or how it benefits society. Otherwise it is a complete waste of space and paper.
9. Trying to meet up with the grad afterward. 10,000 people all told each other to meet at the statue in the front entrance of the auditorium. That’s if they even thought ahead to have a spot to meet.
10. Trying to take pictures. Once everyone realizes that everyone else is also meeting at the statue they start walking around looking for places to take pictures. That many people walking randomly around is going to lead to a lot of people walking through each others shots. As far as actually getting a picture of the grad as he is walking across the stage, you better have a professional camera with a 1000x zoom if you want to make heads from tales of anyone on stage.
Except for my own graduation (or graduations if I pursue my Masters degree) I hopefully won’t have anyone I know graduating college anytime soon. With any luck, by the time my daughter graduates college in 22 or so years some of these complaints will be fixed and I will only have a top 5 list.
