Weird graduation things your school does?

[DerpTastic]

"Things" is a pretty vague word, but I was wondering if your school has any weird things they do for graduation that most schools don't?

 

I had a friend on facebook from another school who mentioned having a yearbook. I found that odd, as to me, that seems like such a strictly high school and below thing. There are so many more students in college! That book would be huge.

 

Additionally, at our graduation commencement, we actually go a couple weeks in early, they put you in a graduation gown and record a video of you saying your major, hometown, and major. They play these videos on a screen during commencement while you walk, instead of reading your name. I had to record mine today.

 

And off-topic from college graduations, I had a 5th grade (elementary school) and 8th grade (middle school) graduation ceremony. Someone told me today they found that unusual.

[ss2player]

We had "Senior Week" with various events and housing for family to stay and celebrate with you. Of course you had to foot the bill, but plenty of people participated anyway.

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

I have no idea. I'm not gonna walk. Fuck that. 

[Vene]

I have no idea. I'm not gonna walk. Fuck that.

I only ended up walking because my parents wanted to see the ceremony.

[Pitangus]

I think my college had a yearbook as well. I was working in a different state during my commencement week, so I don't know exactly what was planned, but it sounded pretty low-key compared to some of the other things my college does (e.g. big summer-camp-like orientation events). From what I read there was just a rehearsal and a dinner event a day or two before the ceremony itself. 

 

I only ended up walking because my parents wanted to see the ceremony.

 

My parents went to my commencement even though I didn't. They just wanted to see the ceremony and point out my name out to other parents. Apparently my name was called first because of my class rank, so they got to kick things off with "<my name>, in absentia." I was frustrated with my college at the time, so I thought it was pretty funny.  

Edited April 24, 2014 by Pitangus

[TakeruK]

The video thing is interesting and makes things go a lot faster! I am curious--how big was your school and how many people participated in each ceremony? My undergrad had 44,000 undergrads (so maybe 10,000 or so graduate per year) and they handle this large volume by doing 3 or 4 graduation ceremonies per day for 6 days or something. So, I graduated with a group of only 200 ish people, which makes the ceremony mercifully short! I made some really close friends in University so it was a great feeling to cross the stage with them and also because my family would have liked to see it.

 

I know people from schools with yearbooks. Generally, these books are not like high school ones but more like a journal of what happened on campus that year, which makes more sense!

 

I don't think there was anything especially strange about my undergrad ceremony. Our University's mace is pretty cool though (http://graduation.ubc.ca/event/about/university-mace/) but I think all schools have a cool mace right? I didn't walk for my MSc since the ceremony was after I already started my PhD and I'm not going to walk for my MS later this year. I'll probably walk for my PhD though.

[microarray]

I have no idea. I'm not gonna walk. Fuck that. 

 

 

i'm not walking either.

[kyjin]

My undergrad also had a senior week, but everything was covered by our tuition/student fees, so you basically pre-paid for it. Trips to Six Flags, a boat cruise (affectionately called the booze cruise), a tassel tea, party at the Aquarium, trip to Atlantic City- lots of fun. The reasoning was the school had two weeks for finals, but seniors had to finish by the end of the first week so everything could be graded before graduation, so we got to run around the second week. We also had a garden party- a big part out on the lawns on campus where underclassman put together tables with drinks and food for graduates and their families. This was a huge deal, and I had fun being a "Garden Party Girl" as an underclassman, and of course getting to enjoy my own senior year.

[ss2player]

My undergrad also had a senior week, but everything was covered by our tuition/student fees, so you basically pre-paid for it. Trips to Six Flags, a boat cruise (affectionately called the booze cruise), a tassel tea, party at the Aquarium, trip to Atlantic City- lots of fun. The reasoning was the school had two weeks for finals, but seniors had to finish by the end of the first week so everything could be graded before graduation, so we got to run around the second week. We also had a garden party- a big part out on the lawns on campus where underclassman put together tables with drinks and food for graduates and their families. This was a huge deal, and I had fun being a "Garden Party Girl" as an underclassman, and of course getting to enjoy my own senior year.

 

Did you go to Penn? Sounds like something they would do, but in my case we had to pay for all the tickets to things. But I also graduated in December, so I was outta there and working by the time May rolled around.

 

Edit: nevermind, I see you went to Bryn Mawr. Close enough.

Edited April 24, 2014 by ss2player

[Munashi]

My graduation from undergrad was outdoors.  Held under a large tent/canopy thing.  That was relatively odd to me.

[DerpTastic]

The video thing is interesting and makes things go a lot faster! I am curious--how big was your school and how many people participated in each ceremony? My undergrad had 44,000 undergrads (so maybe 10,000 or so graduate per year) and they handle this large volume by doing 3 or 4 graduation ceremonies per day for 6 days or something. So, I graduated with a group of only 200 ish people, which makes the ceremony mercifully short! I made some really close friends in University so it was a great feeling to cross the stage with them and also because my family would have liked to see it.

 

I know people from schools with yearbooks. Generally, these books are not like high school ones but more like a journal of what happened on campus that year, which makes more sense!

 

I don't think there was anything especially strange about my undergrad ceremony. Our University's mace is pretty cool though (http://graduation.ubc.ca/event/about/university-mace/) but I think all schools have a cool mace right? I didn't walk for my MSc since the ceremony was after I already started my PhD and I'm not going to walk for my MS later this year. I'll probably walk for my PhD though.

 

We have about 8k students total. I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but from past years the graduating class size seems to always be around 900-950. (Which isn't too low compared to the 8k total, since we graduate somewhere around 500 in the fall too). Possibly up to 1000 this year, as they ran out of extra tickets for people. I had figured, assuming each person takes about 5 seconds, and a couple extra for in between videos, we can probably get 8-9 students a minute. It's still nearly two hours of names. 

 

I went to my sister's graduation at Penn State a few years ago, and her boyfriend at the time. They broke their's up into different days based on majors, although I still think they had over 1,000 on each day! It was interesting to see which were looped together. He was on the engineering day, but they looped a few in like computer science and physics. My sister's had a whole grab bag of random things like hotel management, restaurant management, education, nursing... and so on.

[TakeruK]

We have about 8k students total. I'm not sure of the actual numbers, but from past years the graduating class size seems to always be around 900-950. (Which isn't too low compared to the 8k total, since we graduate somewhere around 500 in the fall too). Possibly up to 1000 this year, as they ran out of extra tickets for people. I had figured, assuming each person takes about 5 seconds, and a couple extra for in between videos, we can probably get 8-9 students a minute. It's still nearly two hours of names. 

 

I went to my sister's graduation at Penn State a few years ago, and her boyfriend at the time. They broke their's up into different days based on majors, although I still think they had over 1,000 on each day! It was interesting to see which were looped together. He was on the engineering day, but they looped a few in like computer science and physics. My sister's had a whole grab bag of random things like hotel management, restaurant management, education, nursing... and so on.

 

Now that I think about it more, I think my group was also smaller...10,000 students at 200/ceremony means 50 ceremonies but there were probably more like 20-25 ceremonies. They grouped together people based on majors...so physics and astronomy went with other "physical" sciences like atmospheric science etc. I heard that some of the Arts/Humanities ceremonies were much bigger. 

 

I guess one weird thing is that if you have a double major, e.g. Computer Science & Physics, then you have to graduate with the major that came first in alphabetical order (even if you were a Physics student that added a Computer Science major later on)!

[gingin6789]

Yeah, at my university, you only need 30 credits to graduate if you're a transfer student, but you need 60 credits to qualify for Latin honors. Huh? The difference between 30 and 60 credits is a whole year! A huge chunk of the student population is made up of transfer students, so a lot of good students don't get the honors they deserve.

I had 55 credits and a gpa high enough for highest honors. They wouldn't let me have the honors, of course. I know it's just a title, but I worked so hard, just like the others who did get the title... *shrug* it's over now, but it still irks me when I think about it.

Edited April 24, 2014 by gingin6789

[geographyrocks]

I have no idea. I'm not gonna walk. Fuck that. 

Same here.  I found out that it was a 6 hour ordeal.  Why would I celebrate my graduation by punishing myself?

[kyjin]

Edit: nevermind, I see you went to Bryn Mawr. Close enough.

Haha, yes. Didn't realize Penn had a senior week too.

 

My graduation from undergrad was outdoors.  Held under a large tent/canopy thing.  That was relatively odd to me.

Ours was under a tent too. I thought that was relatively normal. >.> The university where my grandfather teaches does it as well.

Edited April 24, 2014 by kyjin

[Munashi]

Well at least there are other people here who graduated under a tent!  I went to a small school in the northwest USA.. It was rainy.  The tent seemed impractical at the time.  lol

[maelia8]

My college's graduation was outside in the football stadium. It didn't take very long though, as my college has a total of less than 3,000 students and about 500 per grade (that's about how many were at my father's high school!), and I was fine with walking. The whole ceremony only took about two hours, including speeches.

[GreenePony]

I found out I have two ceremonies for masters - one Friday morning for the College of Arts and Science degrees, when we actually walk in an auditorium, and one Sunday morning for the entire university on the National Mall when the degree is actually conferred. No clue if the second one is worth it but my in-laws and parents are both going to be in town so we're going.

Also, they don't give you the actually diploma, they mail it at the end of the summer. My undergrad was bigger and they managed to hand everyone their degree as they cross the stage, without problems.

[Kleene]

We graduate with only our own class. There are 40 CS students. It is supposed to take place in September, after the new year has started.

 

We had a freshmen graduation, which is a bit weird from a US perspective. In my country it is not normal to pass all your classes. If you pass less than three quarters you are kicked off the program. In my class 50% passed their first year, so we had a sort of ceremony to celebrate.

[Queen of Kale]

We got our actual diplomas when we walked and had one big ceremony for everyone. The only unusual thing was because I went to school in New Orleans we had a second line (for those of you that know what that is).

[Vene]

I don't think there was anything especially strange about my undergrad ceremony. Our University's mace is pretty cool though (http://graduation.ubc.ca/event/about/university-mace/) but I think all schools have a cool mace right? I didn't walk for my MSc since the ceremony was after I already started my PhD and I'm not going to walk for my MS later this year. I'll probably walk for my PhD though.

We had no mace, we did have a ceremonial staff gifted to the university by a local native American community.

[Guest Gnome Chomsky]

To anyone who actually attended graduation, how does it work? Do they announce each name individually, their field, their GPA, etc? I just don't want them calling me out when I'm not there. 

[St Andrews Lynx]

The Ancient Universities in the UK all have some incredibly weird traditions for their graduation ceremonies! At Edinburgh when we walked across the stage the Principal/Vice Chancellor of the University tapped us on the head with a hat made from the trousers of John Knox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Knox). Every single one of us. 

 

We had to register for our graduation ceremonies and indicate if we would be in attendance. That way the school knew who was missing - but their name was announced as "in absentia". It was done in batches by degree program. 

[ahlatsiawa]

To anyone who actually attended graduation, how does it work? Do they announce each name individually, their field, their GPA, etc? I just don't want them calling me out when I'm not there.

At my university they announce the person's name and their field. So in my case it was "Engineer <my name>". GPA, thankfully, was not mentioned.

[Vene]

To anyone who actually attended graduation, how does it work? Do they announce each name individually, their field, their GPA, etc? I just don't want them calling me out when I'm not there.

For my alma mater they organized people by college and major. So, they announced major first and then everybody with that major was announced. GPA was never mentioned, but those who graduated with honors were mentioned.