What Do You Remember of Your College Graduation?

By Jefferson A. Singer, Ph.D., (a professor at Connecticut College and a clinical psychologist in private practice)

There is a saucer magnolia tree in front of the Psychology building at Connecticut College. Each May, its pink and white blossoms unfold to herald the beginning of spring. There is a quiet myth shared among the older faculty that on the last day of classes each year, the final blossom of that magnolia will drop to the path below, and a short time after we will don our robes for Commencement. Two decades of these ceremonies have filled me with memories of posing with students, their smiling parents and fidgety younger siblings, of giving hugs and shaking hands, of realizing that many of these good-byes may indeed be permanent, that these youthful faces will be frozen in time for me. I will forever see them as they were at 21 and 22 years old – beautiful in their youth; confident, perhaps with a hint of fear, but impatient and eager to begin the rest of their lives.

When I think back to my own graduation, I see my memory of commencement from a different light, not the sepia-tinged nostalgia of the professor who can project his warmest wishes on even the most unashamed slacker that ever slept through a seminar. Thinking of my own graduation from Amherst College in the early 80s, I am once again inside that self-conscious overly sensitive skin of my own making – that mixture of deep insecurity and arrogance that made me at the time “moody” and “poetic,” though I think I was mostly just confused. I don’t think my confusion was out of the ordinary, and can’t help but wonder how many other smiling graduates have their Dustin Hoffman moments of feeling dazed and directionless, swimming in a deep pool with no clear purpose to their labors.

I have a distinct and rather sad memory of my own graduation ceremony. When the speeches and marching had all ended, when the mortar boards had been thrown like Frisbees in the air and then retrieved, when all the families had re-united and started off toward the luncheon tent, I stood among the rapidly descending clean-up staff, craning my neck and baffled that my family had disappeared. We had made no meeting plan but the crowd was not that big and it seemed incomprehensible to me that my family (my parents, grandparents, and brothers) could not find me, especially as the throng of people thinned to a few final stragglers. My self-righteous anger stirred and I thought how typical of my absent-minded professor father to screw up my one big moment. How hard could it be to walk across a green and give me a brief handshake and say job well-done?

Finally giving up, I walked down the hill to the luncheon, assuming I would find them at a table, stuffing themselves with food (perhaps they might have saved me a seat, at least). When I did indeed find their table, I started to give my dad some pointed words about leaving me up there alone, the only graduate of the Class of ‘80 not to be greeted by a family member. My father listened and I could see that he felt pained by what I said, but I could see something more was on his mind. When I finished my mini-tantrum, he told me that his father had become scared and confused by the noise and the crowd, and they had decided to get him seated at the luncheon tables as soon as they could. This kind of anxiety was unusual for my grandfather, who was a quiet and easy-going man. I had not seen him in the last few months since I had been at school, but I saw something in his eyes that I had not ever seen before; there was a kind of blankness combined with a slightly nervous air. In the months ahead the depth of his Alzheimer’s became readily apparent and we all came to realize how hard my grandmother had worked to hide his declining mental state from us all. I took my seat and gradually calmed down; soon friends stopped by with their parents and a kind of normalcy within the sequence of the day resumed.

Over the years I have recalled this memory with a mixture of sadness and embarrassment over my rather self-indulgent concern with the fact that the celebration of myself was delayed by some minutes. More importantly, I have come to see this last day of college as my first day of full membership in a web of responsibility – no longer a junior partner in adult society – my grandfather’s frailty, my parents’ fear, their own loss simultaneous with my triumph were not a distraction, a side story, an intrusion on my “glory;” they represented my real commencement into a world that asked more of me than my grades or awards or celebrations of success. My college days were over, and I was being reminded of the perpetual “inconvenience” of being a vulnerable and ephemeral human being. I was soon to see that each memory gained is linked to memories lost, each life ahead to lives that slip away. This memory of my momentary loneliness as I stood with my parents nowhere in sight was the most honest introduction that I could have had to what it really meant to start the rest of my complicated life. The world was going to be (as everyone’s is) filled with pain and pleasure, and sometimes pain comes right at the moments when one anticipates the opposite. Adult life means learning that we must embrace this fact. This knowledge was both the cost and prize of graduation (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-scripts/200805/what-do-you-remember-your-college-graduation).

Activity II: Mastering Vocabulary

1. Explain what the words printed in bold type mean.

2. Complete the sentences using correct prepositions. Translate the sentences into Russian.

1. When I think _______ to my own graduation, I see my memory of commencement from a different light, not the sepia-tinged nostalgia of the professor who can project his warmest wishes on even the most unashamed slacker that ever slept ________ a seminar.

2. I don’t think my confusion was _________ _________ the ordinary and can’t help but wonder how many other smiling graduates have their Dustin Hoffman moments of feeling dazed and directionless, swimming in a deep pool with no clear purpose to their labors.

3. When the speeches and marching had all ended, when the mortar boards had been thrown like Frisbees in the air and then retrieved, when all the families had re-united and started ___________ toward the luncheon tent, I stood among the rapidly descending clean-up staff, craning my neck and baffled that my family had disappeared.

4. My self-righteous anger stirred and I thought how typical of my absent-minded professor father to screw __________ my one big moment.

5. I took my seat and gradually calmed_____________; soon friends stopped ___________ with their parents and a kind of normalcy within the sequence of the day resumed.

6. I was soon to see that each memory gained is linked to memories lost, each life ahead to lives that slip __________.

3. Find synonyms for the following words:

Fidgety (adj.), descend (v.), baffled (adj.), apparent (adj.), perpetual (adj.), vulnerable (adj.), anticipate (v.), incomprehensible (adj.)

4. Decide which of the prefixes (dis-, il-, im-, in-, ir-, un-) can be used to make opposites of the following adjectives:

Accurate, adequate, agreeable, avoidable, believable, coherent, competent, comprehensible, complete, conscious, contented, convenient, credible, curable, different, efficient, imaginable, inclined, literate, mature, moral, obedient, organized, personal, proper, qualified, relevant, resistible, satisfied, sufficient.

 

Activity III: Answering the Questions

1. Does Jefferson Singer like commencements? What feelings do they arouse in him?

2. What was his own commencement like? How did he feel?

3. What did his graduation ceremony teach him?

4. Do you think you will miss university when you graduate? What do you think you will miss most of all?

ACTIVE SPEAKING