This past weekend, myself and several other thousand students graduated from the University of Cincinnati. I, myself, was filled with pride and happiness and lost sleep over thinking about the day I was going to sit with my peers and walk across that stage to receive congratulations from the President of our University. To have my family sit in the crowd among many other families and yell my name with pride. I was ecstatic about the opportunity that I had to get participate in the "dreaded ceremony," that so many people think of it as. But not me.

As I stood in the armory field house while waiting for myself and the rest of the graduates to be ushered into the arena to the ceremony, I cannot tell you how many graduates I overheard say “I can’t believe I have to sit through this thing” or “My parents forced me to come to this stupid ceremony.” These comments pretty much made my jaw drop. Really? You’re going to stand here and complain that you get the opportunity to participate in a ceremony that so many across this country never get the chance to do? You’re going to complain that you have to spend two and a half hours out of your life in a cap and gown so that your Mom and Dad and whoever else was there to support you could watch you receive something you worked four hard years to earn? Think about it.

Maybe I’m overreacting, or a little too sentimental about the whole thing, but I just think that sometimes we need to take a step back and realize how much we have to be grateful for. Graduating from college is no small thing. So many people would kill to say that they have a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree and would have loved to be a part of the mass of graduates that sat in 5/3 arena this past weekend. We need to watch what we say out loud to those around us and be thankful that we were “forced” to be there by our families.

Instead of finding something to complain about on a day that is all about you and your accomplishments, find a way to share the experience with others and make it a day of celebration and a day of thanks. Congratulations to the class of 2016 everywhere, you should be very proud and I hope your day of celebrating is as special as mine was.