How important is graduation to you? Do you want to experience it because you are longing for a finality to your academic journey? Do you want to wear your toga and receive your diploma because it means you are now liberated from the lion’s den? Or do you want to graduate because it means entering another realm? Whatever your reason is, graduation is one of the most awaited times of the year!
Graduation is like celebrating a new year because it reminds us how we survived another year of challenges—from getting ready as early as 5:00 A.M., getting stressed with the traffic on your way to school, and burning the midnight oil to pass a quiz—that truly tested our own existence. But as we all shifted to online graduation, is the essence of graduation still the same? Being unable to hear the live calling of your name and your degree as well as the live applause from the audience (AKA your whole family and relatives), is graduation amidst this pandemic education still fulfilling enough? Most graduations happened in either public virtual venues (i.e., Facebook live or YouTube stream) or in private settings (i.e., invite-only Zoom sessions). Thanks to technology because graduation can still happen!
Let us be reminded that for as long as we can still value the significance of an event like that of graduation, we can still find it meaningful enough and truly fulfilling. Despite the lack of physical connections during today’s graduations, it can still be fulfilling since its purpose, which is to honor all our efforts to academically survive, remains the same. With that, I can be confident enough that seeing my picture and name being flashed on the screen of my gadget is still a powerful tap on my shoulder that finally I am done! I am so done… for now.
As we welcome another graduation ceremonies this year, I am appealing to you to retrospect how long have you traveled in order to be in this place you are now, how many cups of coffee you needed for you to stay alert and awake to finish all your outputs, and how much emotional damage the educational landscape costs you. My dear reader, acknowledge all these pain for I am sure they are your springboard to have something great to gain. Advance congratulations, you deserve it.
To graduate or not to graduate? That is not a valid question.
Tags: graduate school, master’s degree, higher education, continuing education, academic pursuits, professional development, career advancement, graduate education, postgraduate studies, lifethinkler
Author: Christian Loid Valenzuela
