is graduation THAT bad?

bluerivers
Wed, 12 Apr 2017 06:22:02 +0000

rodimusprime, I too felt in a similar way to you and in fact I did skip my own graduation ceremony once. I don’t think you’re immature. I think some people like us don’t care about ceremonies or formalities, and other people with different personality types don’t get it.

When I was a kid I attended my dad’s graduation ceremony for his Master’s. It was a big room (stadium?) with thousands of people and I remember the announcer said “please hold your applause until the end”, yet most people didn’t care. Some of the graduates like my dad got their diplomas in silence (only my mom and I attended for him, and we were quiet types), but when some others’ names were called, the room burst into loud yells and cheers. I thought it was so unfair that some graduates were celebrated more than others just because they had more loud family/friends.

Fast forward to the year I graduated with my Bachelor’s. I had in some ways a negative experience at my university, and I didn’t have a job at that time so it felt embarrassing to attend it, and I also remembered my dad’s ceremony. So I skipped it.

Later I got my Master’s at a different university. I was doubtful at first I would attend this ceremony either, but then I mentioned it to a counsellor (who I saw for other reasons) and she said respectfully “well it’s your choice”. So in the end I thought, at least I had a better experience here than during my undergrad, and attended the ceremony. Unlike my dad’s ceremony, there were only a few hundred people inside a much smaller room - the university broke everything up into a lot of smaller ceremonies, so I only saw people from my major and a couple of others. The ceremony was 1 1/2 to 2 hours. There were no celebrity speakers that you often read about, only a few professors spoke and it wasn’t outlandish (and this is coming from someone who’s also not a fan of “fake” sounding speeches). Every single graduate who walked up to get their degree got applause from the entire audience, including myself. (Maybe a few people got a little more cheers, but it wasn’t like my dad’s ceremony, everyone got respect).

So I think it depends on what the graduation ceremony is like - apparently different universities do it very differently. I don’t know which is more common or how to find out what the ceremony is like. If it was like my dad’s, I wouldn’t have wanted to attend, but I don’t regret attending my Master’s even though I still don’t find ceremonies a big deal. I wonder what my undergrad university’s ceremony would’ve been like but I guess I’ll never know.

As for the details, yes I had to wear the uniform which you can borrow for the ceremony. I don’t know about leaving for the bathroom but I didn’t see it happen to anyone.