UCSD’s senior class should be as excited about graduation as the bookstore, whose signs have been promoting every type of graduation-related product since last March. But unfortunately, these seniors really only get to look forward to the end of their commencement ceremonies, when they can toss their caps up in the air and shuffle out of RIMAC field and into the job market.
The problems with commencement are a result of several factors: Our six-college system continues to divide students, the program’s structure leads to chaos and the ceremonies are just straight-up boring. Our administrators need to address these issues if they want graduates to leave with positive memories of UCSD.
With the current system, many graduates are unable to stand alongside their friends in other colleges at graduation. UCSD has a separate commencement ceremony for each college and five other commencement ceremonies for other schools on campus, like the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management. UCSD’s college administrators also explicitly note that students cannot walk the stage at other colleges’ ceremonies.
These separate commencement ceremonies unnecessarily divide graduates by identities that many leave behind after completing their general education. UCSD’s six colleges are arbitrary to students by the time they move off campus, and it seems unnecessary to bring them back into play among graduates who have already befriended students in other colleges. Compared to other schools, UCSD’s graduation procedure seems profuse: UC Berkeley only holds one commencement ceremony, and UCLA holds two identical graduation ceremonies that graduating seniors can choose to sign up for. UCSD should consider following suit to allow graduates the option to graduate with their friends.
UCSD administrators offer a minor concession with a much smaller, informal All Campus Graduation Celebration the night before the commencement ceremonies take place. However, this event is both unpublicized and unappealing to graduates. Frankly, the ceremony seems to be a sorry attempt from UCSD to provide an opportunity to celebrate graduating with friends. But graduates don’t want to sit through two sub-par ceremonies, and the informal ceremony alone does not equate to a traditional ceremony at which graduates wear caps and gowns and take pictures with their friends.
The main reason why a single graduation ceremony seems unfeasible is that we have no on-campus facility with the capacity for a big, six-college commencement. RIMAC field can barely accommodate each of the six separate ceremonies. Graduates cannot even guarantee their guests tickets to the event as is, and although the administration assures students that parking will be “plentiful” (good joke), capacity is limited, and seating is “first come, first served.” Things might move more smoothly if ticketed guest passes were issued. It seems but a minor request to allow graduates to guarantee seating for guests who fly in for the ceremony.
UCLA’s ceremony allots each graduate four guests and an option to purchase more tickets for a fee, and Berkeley’s ceremony requires graduates to request and then purchase tickets. Ticketing our commencement ceremony would not only level the seating battlefield; it would also provide a safer, more organized way to anticipate the number of guests who will attend the event. It will help prevent more of the inevitable chaos that accompanies graduation ceremonies, especially considering that, thanks to the six colleges’ separate events, they occur back-to-back.
If graduates and their guests have to endure hours of speeches, it would be appreciable if UCSD could deliver better guest speakers. Over the past few years, we’ve had some cool (but still random) speakers, like Uncle Phil from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Beavis and Butthead” creator James Avery and UCSD alumnus Mike Judge, but speakers have mostly been unknown alumni that graduates and their families have no interest in hearing speak at graduation. If UCSD administrators didn’t have to locate a different speaker for each ceremony, they might actually be able to find one interesting, qualified speaker to address the graduating class. If UC Davis can get Nancy Pelosi to speak at its commencement ceremony, there’s no reason why a university of our caliber can’t get similar speakers for ours.
Commencement is a rite of passage that graduating seniors can’t miss, but it shouldn’t be an event that they dread attending. UCSD administrators should address graduation as an issue and should plan to reform an event that is both crucial to the reputation of the university and its future alumni. After spending a difficult few years at UCSD, graduates deserve an inclusive, organized event they can actually look forward to.
