Pomp and Circumstance

I am this close to graduating, but I will not be walking for so many reasons.

The Cap and Gown: I do not want to buy, rent, borrow, steal or barter for this ridiculous outfit. I am sure it made sense to someone some time, but I think it is one of the goofiest things a person could wear, and I am including bell bottom leisure suits and those absurdly oversized sunglasses in the list. Like a wedding gown, there will only be one time and place that this costume will be appropriate to wear. Like a wedding gown, sentimentality artificially inflates its value. Unlike a wedding gown, every single person looks silly in one. There are thousands of other items I would rather spend my wife’s resources on, like some new books or a nice wedge of artisan cheese.

Pomp and Circumstance: I just don’t like the song. Sir Edward Elger composed it for King Edward the VII’s coronation in 1901, and when he received an honorary doctorate from Yale in 1905 they played it as a recessional. Then Princeton played it, then the University of Chicago, and since all the cool kids were doing it, “Pomp and Circumstance” became the only tune that could possibly accompany a graduation. Over a hundred years later and we haven’t kicked the habit.

Commencement Speech: I don’t have anything against commencement speeches, but all the good ones are recorded and I prefer to listen to them in the comfort of my own home, where I have the option to turn it off if my pretentious BS meter blinks. At the actual ceremony you are a captive audience. I just don’t want to risk it.

Diplomas Don’t Matter: Transcripts matter. Letters of recommendation matter. Diplomas are no big deal, and they don’t even hand those out on graduation day. The ceremony is all symbolic posturing and no substance.

Who Is That Guy Anyway?: The chair of the English department will be the one handing out replicas of meaningless documents. He will be shaking hands. This will be the first time he has met the vast majority of the students he will greet that day, and he does this every year. I realize that he had more to do with my college experience than I can currently appreciate. Even so, I have no personal connection to him. It would mean more to me if my least favorite instructor handed me my fake diploma than for a stranger to do it, but that can’t happen because there are thousands of kids who have to walk, and they have to speed the process along.

Too Many People: In Spring 2013, 5,300 graduates walked. This makes the ceremony less of a celebration of individual achievement and more of a feat of logistical heroism. Every one of us worked hard to win our degrees, and each of us has a different story in how we got to this point. We did not do this as a collective, but as individuals, and each of us deserves individual recognition. We supposedly get that individual recognition, except we are all getting it at once which means that we all kind of bleed in together. Each person gets to go through the line like everyone else, gets their name announced in the same monotone voice, and we all get lost in the crowd of one another. It’s one of those rare moments when the sum becomes less than the parts, and I don’t feel like being swallowed up in the masses any more than I want to participate in devouring anyone else’s well deserved time. We are all special, but on graduation day, what is intended to be our moment of triumph, we become just another face.

Not My Style: I have never been a normal student. Out of high school I went straight into the Army, so when I wound up in college I was already a different kind of person; at orientation I was older and had been through more life threatening experiences than my chaperone. I was married by my sophomore year. I never hung out in the quad, never rushed for a fraternity, never played intramural sports, never joined a club, never lived in the dorm, never did any of the traditional college crap that everyone gets nostalgic about. I did all of that growing up and self-discovery in a different environment, with different people and different rules. My college experience was about getting grades and getting out, so the graduation ceremony simply doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to my traditional student peers.

I Love My Friends and Family Too Much to Make Them Sit Through This Thing: I actually don’t have anything to add to that.

Graduation is still a big deal, it’s just the official ceremony that I would like to skip. I worked hard to graduate. I ignored my wife and kids for this. I performed three different songs in sign language for this. I sat through “The Blair Witch Project” twice for this. I have invested too much into this lousy sheet of paper to not celebrate, I just won’t be doing it with thousands of strangers who don’t care about me and only a handful of people that do. Instead we will be throwing a party with people that have in some way contributed to my success, be it through childcare or emotional support, and thus have at least a small stake in me. There will be food. There will laughter. I may even cry a little. But there will be no silly outfits, outdated dirges, tired speeches or impersonal “recognition.” If you are reading this blog post you are invited, just holler for details.