1. For Many, It Means Little
“Congratulations! You made it!” seems to be the core message of graduation. And it’s true--we did make it through high school, which can be rough. But compared to what’s coming next for most of us (i.e., college), it’s downright easy. You only need to earn 24 semester credits with a D or above and be at school 90% of the time to graduate (at least in my state). Even the troublemakers and the slackers graduate high school. So in effect the school is saying, “You did the absolute bare minimum! Yippee!” For the valedictorian and salutatorian, for all those in AP and/or honors classes, and even for those simply graduating with decent grades, such false congratulations fall flat.
2. The Recognition Is Minimal
Just like the criteria for graduating high school, the recognition for it is hollow. They announce your name, you walk across a stage and shake a few hands, and someone takes your picture. Big deal. It takes maybe 10 seconds, and they don’t even describe what you accomplished in high school (other than listing Latin honors in the program) or what you’re doing afterwards.
3. It’s Boring
Even though it takes 10 seconds (maybe) to recognize each person, the large size of most high school graduating classes makes all that recognition time add up. When you add the principal’s, district representative’s, and seniors’ (inevitably cliché) graduation speeches plus any other performances plus all the time students spend waiting to walk in, graduations can become 2 hours or more of purgatory. (The situation at my school’s graduation got so bad that people were playing Go Fish in their chairs).
4. It Forces You to Fight Traffic
Why do students spend all that time waiting to walk in in the first place? Because they all have to get there super early to beat the traffic snarl that inevitably accompanies large events such as graduations. We got to ours an hour early and it was STILL hard to find a parking space; after it was over, it took 20 minutes just to get out of the venue...with traffic cops present. That’s 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.
5. Annoying People Show Up
During that hour in between arriving/parking and actually graduating, not one, not two, but three aggressive fire-and-brimstone Christian preachers showed up. Now, I’ve got no problem with people sharing their beliefs (and they have the right to do so under the First Amendment), but it’s rude to just walk up to people and push your beliefs on them. As a Christian myself (thus making their preaching to me pointless), I simply turned the other cheek and ignored them, but that didn’t make their lectures pleasant. And during the graduation itself, many parents, siblings and friends seemed to think “Please hold your applause until the end” was just a suggestion, which made graduation drag on even longer (see Point #3).
6. It Comes with a Stupid Outfit
Let’s face it: caps and gowns aren’t really flattering on anyone. The student gowns are baggy, and the faculty gowns look like something a medieval courtier would wear. All they say is, “Hey! This is an academic ceremony!” (as if that weren’t obvious from the “Happy Graduation” banners, programs and announcements). Far better to leave them in the Middle Ages where they belong and just have everybody wear a nice outfit. It’s a nice ceremony, but ultimately...
7. It Doesn’t Matter
All that pomp and circumstance (pun intended) really isn’t necessary. The only thing relevant to your future is actually getting your diploma (to prove that you completed high school to anyone who asks), and those aren’t even handed out during the ceremony--they’re handed out as people walk out. So there’s really no point to having such a long, protracted ceremony at all! Just ask the people who are sick or out of town for graduation. They do fine in the real world. And that’s what matters.
