Nervous about graduation? Don’t worry, we’ll tell you what the lead-up emails won’t
Illustration by Sage Blackwell.
Graduation! It’s somewhere on the horizon for many UVic students. No matter how much you love pulling all-nighters at the library with pumpkin scone crumbs on your t-shirt, spam-refreshing Brightspace in a feverish sweat, and stealing forks from the Cove, these days won’t last forever.
It’s worth celebrating all our hard work as we move on from this era of our lives, though sometimes celebration and anxiety are unseemly friends. But don’t worry! I’m here to provide all the tips and tricks I can to make your graduation as easy as possible, because hey, that amount of clapping is loud and scary.
Pay up
The first tip is an easy one. Make sure you give the university some money. No, tuition doesn’t count. You may know that your CAPP report says you’re ready to graduate, but how are they supposed to know that? Give them some money, and maybe they’ll take a peek for you.
Look the part
Second, dress to impress. This is your big day. You shouldn’t be shambling across the stage in cargo shorts and flip-flops, and your dad probably has dibs on the family formal wear anyways. Do better. Be better.
Help the speaker out
Third, make sure you have a name that’s easy to pronounce. Trust me, look at mine. Nothing ruins graduation like your faculty’s dean butchering your name in an auditorium full of your loved ones and peers, and for some of us, it’s almost guaranteed to happen.
If you’re concerned — like I was — consider changing your name to Smith, Johnson, or maybe Baker. Those are nice and easy, and the dean will thank you for it. They might even give you an extra degree.
Give those hands a break
Fourth, don’t think you have to clap for everyone. I let my fellow humanities graduates peer pressure me into clapping for every single person that walked the stage, and quite frankly, I resent them for it. My hands hurt a third of the way into the ceremony.
Also, let’s be honest, you are going to see some people you probably don’t like very much. Remember that person who totally one-upped you in a first year discussion group, making it super obvious to everyone that you didn’t do the readings, and had no clue what you were talking about? Yeah, they’re graduating too. Don’t follow the crowd, be your own person. Boo them.
Run!
Fifth, the second the ceremony ends, you need to flee the Jamie Cassels Centre like you’re under attack. Everyone and their 14 siblings are going to be standing around, shoulder-to-shoulder, just taking up space. If you wait for too long, you might get stuck in there forever. Leave etiquette at the door, get aggressive if you have to, and seize those gaps with your elbows out.
And sure, you might step on some toes, so to speak, but it doesn’t matter. What are they going to do, withhold your degree? Too late.
Pay your barber a visit
Sixth, either get a haircut before the ceremony, or leave your graduation cap on until you’ve done the mental preparation necessary to see what you look like after wearing a weird hat for two hours. I, like a fool, was too lazy to see a barber before my graduation. My horrifying hat hair has now been enshrined forever in the family photos on my parents’ mantle. I looked like Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. Don’t be me.
If you want your graduation experience to be silky-smooth, make sure to follow this guide very closely. Or don’t. No matter how the ceremony goes, you will be exiting university an older, wiser, more confident, and (hopefully) a kinder individual than you were when you first showed up. Look forward to it, celebrate it, and be grateful for the people who are there to celebrate it with you.
