So this is graduated

Despite not having started my 15-page final paper for my English senior seminar, I just walked at the English department commencement. What I want to know is: if I don’t write the paper and then therefore fail the class, does the department dispatch two goons to my door to get my certificate back? How do they enforce this system? It seems prone to abuse.

There were two student speakers, and both, apparently having not consulted one another, addressed the question “what does one do with an English degree?” My usual answer, “starve,” wasn’t good enough, so they elaborated (I’m paraphrasing here): “anything that requires good grammar and that doesn’t pay well.” I’m not kidding — that’s pretty much the gist of their answers. I felt pretty smug with my other degree right around then.

The ceremony was long but interesting, in that I finally learned the names of many people I’ve been taking classes with for the last two or so years and how smart they are, as revealed by a) gown decoration and b) their list of awards, read with their name. On the former, I opted to not wear my gown and all its adornments, as I thought it would be pretentious. The latter system was also problematic, in that each student listed which awards they had received that they wanted read aloud on a 3 by 5 card with their name on it, which they handed to the announcer before receiving their diploma-placeholder on stage. I only noted that I had (or will, on Saturday, so don’t tell anyone in the CS dept) received the Bob Bandes Teaching Award and that I was going to work as a developer at amazon in July. They tacked on the fact that I was a “staff writer for the Daily.” In retrospect, I’m glad I capped things there. Some people included every trivial honor they had ever received, and those lists were so tedious — in an already long ceremony — that I personally hated those people. The thing with self-praise in such a venue is that 1) nobody will remember your awards after five minutes and 2) while they’re read, everyone thinks you’re an ass. Among the things other people listed that I could have as well but did not:

Phi Beta Kappa golden key recipient

Various other stupid honor societies, like Golden Key, that are cheap knock-offs of the above and which I did not join

Dean’s List Fall 2000, Winter 2001 … Spring 2005

Cum Laude

Published in Bricolage

Double degree in Computer Science

Mary Gates Research Training Grant

Various scholarships won in high school and applied to college

What’s more pathetic: listing tawdry awards on a 3 by 5 card to be read at a departmental graduation, or not listing those awards and then doing so instead on your website?

Some graduates edited their 3 by 5 for humorous effect. One person listed his future plans as “moving to Mexico to become a goat herder,” another as “dinner,” another as “moving back in with my parents.” One prefixed his name with “magnificent.” One actually got the announcer to announce him as “coolest English graduate ever.”

If only I had known you could just arbitrarily alter your 3 by 5 I would have crossed out all my accolades and replaced them with one or more of the following:

Famous author and all-around great guy

Skilled and generous lover

Inventor of the cordless phone

Over 7,000 cumulative Scene Points

Presidential Ambassador to the People’s Republic of Getting Your Ass Kicked

In short, graduation was pretty sweet, but could have been sweeter. Now for those fifteen pages…