I recently received The Call from my parents. I’m sure
many of you have had the same conversation.
“Let’s talk about graduation,” they said.
“Let’s talk about furniture!” I replied.
“We should figure out how many tickets you’re able
to order,” they said.
“We should figure out how many licks it takes to get to
the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop!” I replied. I didn’t
want to talk about graduation at all.
My parents would prefer to think of graduation as three and a
half months away ““ just enough time to begin planning for it.
I would prefer to think of graduation and, with it, the real world,
as slightly farther away than the end of time, so why don’t
we put the graduation talk on hold for a little while?
But as much as I am sweating the idea of being summarily kicked
to the curb of this fine institution, only to face the oncoming
Hummer that is life careening toward me, there are other students
who have more pressing concerns than I. Those students are
graduating not in three months but in three weeks.
They are the winter quarter graduates; they are the forgotten
seniors, stuck in UCLA purgatory, having finished all of their
required classes but waiting until June to join the rest of us in
getting the closure and the recognition that they deserve for their
undergraduate tenure.
“It was kind of an accident,” says winter quarter
biochemistry graduate Erin Foley of her pending exit from UCLA
““ an early exit born not of intention but of happenstance
after her realization that she was nearly done with her
requirements. “I think (I’ll) miss out on the
celebration of spring quarter a little bit,” she said.
Oh, she’ll hang around campus, having fun with her
still-studying friends for two and a half months, but don’t
be too jealous of her ““ she won’t be able to work off
any calories gained in rounds of sake bombing or runs to Fatburger,
because her no-longer-a-student status will preclude her from going
to the Wooden Center.
Such is the crazy ordeal of the early graduate.
It is as if fall and winter graduates simply vanish. Our
academic system is set up so that there will be students who are
finishing their degrees every quarter, whether they be
super-seniors graduating one quarter late, or students such as
Foley who either race extra fast toward the finish line or fall
backward across it by surprise, leaving the rest of us in the dust.
But there are no banners for these students and their three and a
half or four and a half years of achievement. No balloons or
streamers.
We are much too busy planning our flights home for winter break
or booking a hotel in Mexico for spring break to recognize their
achievement until after they’ve sat around twiddling their
thumbs for months and have, perhaps, already moved on to (gasp)
jobs.
At least Foley only has to wait a couple months before walking
in the UCLA College Commencement ceremony with her friends. Fall
graduates are stuck with a somewhat more uncomfortable choice.
According to the UCLA College Commencement Web site, fall graduates
are supposed to walk in Commencement the spring after they complete
their degrees ““ six months after they’ve taken their
final classes. If they foresee not being able to make that ceremony
(understandable, given the number of things that can happen in the
real world in six months), they may petition to walk the previous
spring ““ six months before they take their last finals.
Do you choose to be recognized for the culmination of a lifetime
of educational achievement six months before it technically
culminates or six months after you stop caring?
If you graduated in the fall, would you still feel connected to
the school by the time your prescribed graduation came around?
You’d be out of school for six months before it came time to
pretend like you were just finishing. What about students who have
moved onto jobs by then?
How weird would it feel to work all week during the middle of
June like you have every week for the past several months, only to
graduate from college on a random Saturday? Wouldn’t it be
better if there were a fall graduation ceremony, albeit a smaller
one? Couldn’t we put down our holiday gifts and our sleds for
just the briefest of minutes? Or, if budget-cut push comes to
shove, at least a banner across Bruin Walk commending these
students?
Foley says, “You do sometimes feel, as far as the
university is concerned, that it’s like, “˜Oh, good, we
can get rid of a few more (students) early.'” Thanks
for coming, graduates, and don’t forget to address those
alumni donations to M-U-R-P-H-Y H-A-L-L.
If Murphy Hall won’t do it, then spring quarter graduates,
take heed: As you spend May and June skipping your classes to clink
flagons of ale in celebration at Maloney’s, pour one out for
the lonely, shivering masses of early or late graduates, their
yearning noses pressed up against the windows of this institution
as we “normal” seniors spend the spring being lavished
with praise from every angle.
Look, banners! Look, balloons! Look, boxes upon boxes of black
robes just waiting to be worn with pride as we prance across the
stage in June, the applause raining from the heavens as our parents
stand and recognize the end of a 16-year journey. Pour one out for
the lonely, you normal seniors ““ their journey has been over
for months. And if you see them, give them a Tootsie Roll Pop
““ they’ve earned it.
E-mail Atherton at datherton@media.ucla.edu. Send general
comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.