Today: Mar 28, 2024

Allowing last year’s seniors to walk at graduation

Abby EpsteinManaging Editor

The Class of 2021 is having an in-person graduation—and so is the Class of 2020. An email was sent out to last year seniors saying they are welcome to come back and walk.

The university will now be combining the Class of 2020 grad-uation with the Class of 2021s’. After four years of col-lege, many students look forward to walking across the stage to accomplish finishing their degree.

Last year’s seniors were stripped of this joy when everything was shut down due to the pandemic. The university did look at holding a graduation in the summer, but was not able to as the pandemic was still in full swing. The best the university could offer was a virtual grad-uation where seniors saw their pictures come across their T.V. screen.

This does not match the experience of walking across a stage in front of friends and family along with their classmates. Those seniors never thought they would not get to have a proper grad-uation. So, it is nice that an in-person graduation is able to happen and they are allowing the class of 2020 to come back and walk if they choose to.

To some seniors, it never felt like they grad-uated and that the year just abruptly ended. Many said it did not feel like they graduated until everyone else was head-ing back to campus and they were not. For some seniors this could be the closure they needed, as it does not feel like they graduated until they have walked across the stage.

With myself being a senior this year, I was excited when I heard that graduation would be in-person. I was also excited when I heard the university is allowing the Class of 2020 to come and join graduation. Other 2021 seniors have said they do not mind and are happy for the 2020 seniors.

There was a petition the Class of 2020 had in hopes the universi-ty would allow them to come back. A rally was also supposed to be held but never did take place because the email saying the class could attend this year’s graduation was sent out prior.

It looks like the uni-versity listened to the demands of the class of 2020 and wanted to give them what they unfor-tunately missed out on last year. The university made the right decision in allowing the 2020 seniors the chance to come back and walk at this year’s graduation.

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