We are now halfway through the semester; having just finished week seven. I gave my students their mid-semester tests during week, so there is a bunch of papers to be marked at the office.
We are also having our
22nd Convocation this weekend. I believe that
commencement or
graduation is a better and more accurate word to describe the degree conferment ceremony. Somebody may be able to dig up how we came to use the term
convocation instead. The older public universities in the country may simply keep the term by tradition, but we were only established in 1983. Besides, instead of one huge convocation of graduands, staff, alumni etc we have the ceremony split into five sessions over three days.
Anyway, I’ve always thought that the convocation ceremony is more of a big deal to parents and family members than to the students themselves. As a student I hated the week-long Convocation Fiesta* –
CONVEST – that turns the campus into a circus. Classes were disrupted, and they closed down the college canteen to force you to go eat at the
CONVEST Expo where the food were just as terrible, but you pay twice the amount and had to walk 20 miles. I wasn’t all that excited during my graduation too. Big deal, you finish your degree and get to go on a stage to receive your diploma from some big shot. [1] You only pretend, because you actually collect your diploma unceremoniously from a university pencil-pusher the next day; and [2] that big shot, who may not be that big of a shot at all, doesn’t really know who you are and why he is congratulating you. My mom surely did enjoy the show, though, both times.
As a colleague commented, we would probably have appreciated it more if we had to work harder to graduate. By the same token it is no wonder that parents are so excited in seeing their children graduate, after spending all the emotional, financial, and psychological investments in raising their children and seeing them through school. I can imagine myself getting excited seeing my students graduate.
I attended the second session today as part of the academic staff procession. As we were queuing to enter the hall, I had this amazing idea of a criterion to add when deciding where I want to apply to do my
PhD – which school has the best-looking robe?
__________
* The Malay word
pesta obviously comes from the Spanish
fiesta, which in turn comes from Latin
fēstum for feast. Why can't they just use the more common English word festival or fest, which by the way comes from German but still originates from the same Latin word; instead of fiesta, which is more commonly used to describe religious holidays? ‘Convocation Fest’ saves you a syllable, and doesn't sound as cheap.
