Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !uspolitics@lemmy.world
7) No Hit-and-Run questions.
Please don't delete your post for no apparent reason. If you plan on deleting a question later, say so in the post, or if you feel that you have a good reason to remove it, message a mod beforehand. It's not fair to the ones who took their time to answer, and it's not in the spirit of the community.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
So I feel like I might have an interesting perspective on this...
All throughout college, I saw graduation similar to how you talk about it. I basically thought I'd show up drunk with my buddies, it would take half the day, and then it'd be over. Maybe I'd actually walk, maybe not.
For context, I graduated in the Spring of 2020, right when COVID first was becoming a thing. My graduation ceremony was cancelled, and replaced by a Facebook Live stream. Same speakers and similar speeches to what had been expected, but really none of the pomp and circumstance.
Now if you would've asked me earlier in my college career how I would've felt about my graduation ceremony being cancelled, I probably would've just shrugged it off. But it actually happened. And I find myself feeling like there is something missing from my time at college. Like there was no real sense of closure for the 4 years I spent there, the countless late nights in the library studying for insanely difficult exams, no real send off for the friends I had in the class outside my close circle.
So I feel differently about graduations now. There's always going to be extremes, people who take them way too far. But I see the ceremonies themselves as the way for people (friends, families, professors, etc) to show how proud they are of the accomplishments of the students. And I feel like there's wisdom in acknowledging that the ceremony is how they are trying to express that sentiment to you, and receiving it as intended.
Despite having a poor substitution for a graduation, do you have any sort of pride or feel exclusivity for being part of "The class without a graduation"?
I don't mean you're using it as a pick up line or anything, but just like a "yeah, I was there".