By: Megan Clark
You know what’s really great? Graduating.
Graduating is what we all strive for, it’s the end goal. Well, I guess a career and paycheck is the end goal, but let’s not get too picky.
There’s this ideal picture that accompanies graduating: standing alongside peers, dressed in a red gown, poised to toss the tasseled cap.
However, many people, like myself, graduate out of sync with everyone else. Instead of graduating spring term alongside peers, some students graduate the term before or the term after, making graduation seem a little less impactful and a little less happy.
Tuyen Bolten, senior interdisciplinary studies major, is graduating this term as well.
“I do not have any friends graduating with me at the end of winter term, so my feelings about graduation have been altered slightly,” said Bolton. “I always envisioned graduating college with my closest friends by my side, and I am the first of my friends to graduate.”
Even though we can walk alongside our friends for graduation, it’s weird having to walk early (in the case of summer or fall graduates who walk in spring) or come back after three months for the ceremony.
All of the build up of working toward this one spectacular moment seems kind of anticlimactic once you realize you have to wait to seal the deal.
On coming back to Western for graduation, Bolten explained her mixed feelings on the issue, saying, “[It’ll be] happy to be back in a familiar place that became home for three and a half years, but saddening because I no longer see the same faces I got used to seeing daily.”
I know I’m going to be sad not being able to see my friends on campus everyday, but I’m looking forward to standing next to them for graduation once spring term ends.
Being campus life editor has been a really great experience and I’m happy to step down and pass the torch. It’s been fun, see you in three months!
Contact the author at meclark13@wou.edu or on Twitter @WOU_campuslife
