Yesterday, I met with the dean of WCAS to discuss my graduation date. I’ll be done with school next fall but I wanted to ask him if I could walk this June with my classmates. He asked me “why do you want to do that? Graduations are worthless and substanceless. I’ve been to 40 of them and every time I go I sit there thinking why are we doing this?” I was shocked and speechless. After all he is the dean of our school. For the rest of the meeting I had to sit there in his office listening to him how awful the graduation ceremony is. He started with the weather, then the venue, then the name calling...etc...etc. I said “its personal to me, I want my parents to be there to see me graduate and I want to celebrate with my friends” and he said “there is absolutely nothing personal about it. There is the whole school sitting in one place for about four hours just waiting their names to be called. And usually the person can’t even pronounce the names right”. I heard some awful things about graduation ceremonies and how boring it can be but I think it is more than just this impersonal ‘show’. Just because everyone went through the same system of education and training does not mean that everyone in Northwestern had the same college experience. We all came into this institution with different backgrounds, different thoughts and ideas and Northwestern was a place and an opportunity where we were able to share these ideas and learn from each other and our professors but it wasn’t a place to train everyone to think the same or to have the same experiences. Everyone made different and personal memories and struggles and it was disappointing to know what our institution thinks about the graduation and us as a student body.
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