<p>How many of you didn’t go to your high school or college graduations?</p>
<p>I will be graduating college next year and am debating whether or not to attend. I heard some people say that high school graduation was something you will never forget, but it didn’t seem so special to me. It would have been the same to be if I picked up my diploma.</p>
<p>Just curous if any of you had any regrets not attedning graduation?</p>
<p>I did not attend either my high school or college graduation.</p>
<p>I skipped HS because I had orientation the same day for my summer job and, honestly, I wasn’t terribly fond of high school so it wasn’t a great sacrifice. (I did go to some parties that night, however!)</p>
<p>I skipped college because it was a large public university where the undergrads basically stood up and sat down en masse and presto, you were a graduate! </p>
<p>I did attend my law school graduation - that was personal and meaningful.</p>
<p>I didn’t attend my Ph.D. graduation . . . I was already out of the area working. But when I defended my dissertation (months earlier) my department had a nice reception for me. That too was personal and meaningful.</p>
<p>Went to HS, skipped college and grad degree ones for the same reasons as above–huge state school, and in a different state at the time of both of them.</p>
<p>My husband did not attend his high school graduation. He said that he was “stupid” at the time. He was in a rush to travel abroad and scheduled his departure either on or before graduation day. I think that he regrets it a little bit now, but he does not greatly regret it. I think that his parents would have loved to attend, so they lost out more than my husband.</p>
<p>Perhaps your screen name explains it (you are awake and your mind is racing), but why are you thinking about this so far in advance?</p>
<p>I didn’t go, and never regretted it. I hated my high school and small town where I had few friends, was teased and ignored, and had little in common with people. I couldn’t wait to get out. After high school, my life opened up as I lived in cities where I did fit in.</p>
<p>Didn’t go to college graduation. Huge school, stand up, sit down. Your name was not personally called. I didn’t have a group of friends I was graduating with. I regret it in the sense that I have this picture of a smaller more meaningful graduation that I wish I’d been a part of. I don’t regret it since that wasn’t what this would have been.
I hope that makes sense.</p>
<p>I went to all my graduations. Surprisingly the one that was the most fun was from grad school.</p>
<p>“Perhaps your screen name explains it (you are awake and your mind is racing), but why are you thinking about this so far in advance?”</p>
<p>Insomniatic doesn’t mean you can’t sleep. It means that you are addicated to the deprivation of sleep caused by an epic revelation of joy.</p>
<p>I always like planning things out in advance.</p>
<p>I went to both my high school and college graduations. High school was memorable…college not so much.</p>
<p>Last spring I attended my youngest’ high school graduation which was the same school I graduated from and it was all right. My older daughter’s graduation from college, which included a general and then a specific school graduation? It was HOT, uncomfortable…and one of the best days of my life and that of my family’s lives</p>
<p>Oh…and when my son graduated from the same high school (he is the oldest) we never heard his name because some idiots insist, every year of using boat horns to celebrate their kid’s name.</p>
<p>Would I go again? In a nanosecond…</p>
<p>Went to high school…class was over 1000 students. After that, I didn’t feel the need to attend any further graduations of my own. So I skipped undergrad and grad school graduations. I don’t regret it at all. I still got the diploma in the mail…just like everyone else.</p>
<p>I find graduations to be emotionally pretty charged. I went to my high school and college ones and enjoyed both, but afterward felt a big emotional letdown (although with college, I was flying to Europe the next day so was able to get over it faster). I did not go to my law school graduation and probably should have, but most of my friends were already gone and I didn’t feel connected. Many years later, I do regret it a little bit but since so many classmates skipped it too, it’s not all that bad.</p>
<p>My son had to miss his college graduation this year (because his baseball team was playing in the College World Series in Omaha). I found that to be a really, really hard thing to miss. All day long I thought about the fun we would have had, and how his grandpa was missing seeing his grandson graduate from his alma mater. I still feel bad about it two months later, even though there wasn’t much question at the time about where he needed to be. In that case, he was closely connected to both the team and his friends in his major, so something had to give and there was nothing to do about it. That is one time when I really wished we were super-wealthy and had a private jet :(. </p>
<p>If you have a good reason not to go (a job elsewhere, etc.), then miss it but my feeling is, if you are on the fence about it all, go. At worst it is a wasted day. At best it may be memorable for you years from now.</p>
<p>ellebud–yeah those air horns at high school graduations are so annoying. People think their child is the only one whose name should be heard over the sound system and then they blast those horns through the next student’s name. I think they should be outlawed.</p>
<p>I went to all my graduations–high school, college and law school–and insisted that all the family come to support me! I love graduations–a day devoted to patting yourself on the back (and getting pat on the back) for having finished a long road and achieved a worthy goal.</p>
<p>I went to all my graduations, and it would never have ocurred to me not to. Of course, I gave a speech at my hs graduation, so that would have been awkward to miss, but my hs class only had 90 people in it, so the whole thing didn’t take long anyway. College and law school were relatively small as well. My eldest D graduated college in May and was thinking about skipping, but we insisted as lots of relatives were coming to it. She got an award for having a 4.0 (there were about 20 kids with that out of maybe 6,000 grads). Half the 4.0s didn’t come to graduation, but they made a really big deal of the ones who did come, so D was really glad she went through it. We were too!</p>
<p>I did find out at D’s college graduation that my SIL and her H did not attend their college graduations. Neither one regretted it cause they thought the whole thing was boring. To each own, I guess. My H went to hs graduation, but skipped senior prom, which was the night after graduation for some reason, as he was leaving the next morning at 4am for Europe, which was infinitely more impt to him than prom.</p>