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| A square academic cap, a tam, or a bonnet |
Graduation is one of the best things in life. It
is a time when you reap the rewards of your labor. Yes, whether you spend 2
years or 10 years, those are your results.
Why do some guys insist on having the pictures they take during graduation as
their profile pictures on social media pages like Facebook, twitter, instagram
and whatsapp? No one cares whether you have graduated or not.
I usually find it very awkward looking at profile pictures where a person in
his rightful sense has himself or herself in graduation regalia. Please, you don’t
need to advertize to the entire world that you have graduated.
The regalia should serve the purpose it was meant for. It should be for an occasion.
When you display it on your profile picture, it loses the meaning it should
serve. However, in my opinion those clothes are hideous and lack the oomph they
used to have.
Long ago it was ceremonial and gisty being seen in those clothes, not anymore.
The number of people graduating is increasing steadily and chances are in the
network of friends you keep, most have graduated. Therefore it is embarrassing when
you display your graduation picture as the profile picture.
Times have changed. Hence anyone worth his salt can graduate. Even those who
got Ds and Es have gone to campus courtesy the various channels that enable
them pursue higher education. There are even individuals who have masters degree
without undergraduate degree.
Again with the proliferation of universities and due to the fact that education
has been commercialized and university charters are being dished out left right
and center to appease tribal lords and political hegemonies, it is now possible
to find even the dumbest of guys with a degree. A degree is no longer as
cherished as it used to be. It is now a paper that has lost the due credence it
used to have.
Then there is a lot of fuss over graduation for nothing. Some parents are so
obsessed with the idea of their sons or daughters graduating to the extent that
they organize very huge parties worth hundreds of thousands but when the
graduate asks for money to start a business he will never get any.
This in my opinion is having priorities upside down. Why spend so much on a day’s
affair while the graduate will probably wallow in penury owing to the fact that
its hard getting a job in the current dispensation unless you are connected or
become lucky.
Graduation day is that day where you have to try to be at your best. Many however
don’t see the gravity of the occasion. Some even turn up in clothes they wore
in first year due to the fact that they find the day having no significance in
their lives.
I once saw a graduand who had not even brushed his shoes and he was in a t-shirt
that solidified his humble origin. If you are graduating, you should try to be
smart as possible even if you have no one accompanying you to the occasion.
This is a time you need to buy a new suit even if you have never worn one and
surprise naysayers.
There are people who come for graduation in buses and bring with them nothing
to the graduand. This is the lot that usually crowds the graduation venue
causing the mobile networks to jam. Chances are it is the first time of such
individuals setting their feet in a university and the behavior they depict is
usually very appalling.
Many will insist on taking snaps with the graduand and what is equally
perturbing is the fact that these people are usually very clueless about many
things. Some are even embarrassing and the way they behave is usually quite
ignoramus. As a graduand you just wish they would behave but since you have no willpower,
you let them be.
Then there are those who insist on knowing what you got. Jeez, you are the
person who toiled during that period. As long as you have graduated, whether
you got a pass or first class should be a non issue. There is more to life than
the grade one obtains in university. As long as you have the degree, the rest
should not be an issue. There are many who don’t even get to graduate, and they
still make it in life.
Graduating from university is the joy of
parents. It is said that your first graduation is their effort but the second
and third graduation is your own effort. That is the reason why a whole clan
may turn up for the graduation of their son or daughter.
Since graduation is an important occasion that has lost the luster it had, it
is important to still recognize that it shapes the life a graduand. What I know
is that it is not a must to attend the ceremony but since it is something you
do for the benefit of others, there is no barrier that bars one from attending
it and holding a small party and even say thanks those who make it to the
occasion.
