Graduation; a graduates perspective

Of July 2018 I officially graduated in English Literature with Creative Writing!

It’s already been over a week since I graduated.
A day which has been three years in the making and now feels like a lifetime ago. Now it’s a cliche, but, my graduation was honestly one of the best days of my life.

From the moment I woke up I was filled with excitement and nervous energy.
Even though I graduated in the morning, I still got up three hours before my Mum and Nana were due to arrive. Ensuring I had enough time to get ready and feel prepared for the day - curling my hair, doing my makeup and getting dressed (the best part of getting ready). Throughout this, my hands would not stop shaking! I couldn’t believe I had finally reached this day. Once my bag was packed with my essentials, I headed out to meet my family and officially become a graduate.

Unlike my fellow classmates, I have been busy working graduation as a volunteer, so I knew the breakdown of the day and what I need to do, better than my fellow graduates; so I knew I have to get there early to pick up my robe, tickets and to get professional photos done. First of all, we went to the Sports Hall to get my robe and to have my professional photos taken by the photographers. It is this part of the graduation that can get expensive fast. While the photographer took some really great pictures of my family and I, the family package to buy the prints would have been over £100! There was no way I was letting my mum pay that much! However, we were able to get a large print of myself and a smaller copy for just over £40. Once all the preamble was out of the way, we headed to registration which was based in the marquee at St Paul’s and I said goodbye to my family before heading to take my seat. As there are only a limited number of seats, due to the size of St Paul’s, the ceremony felt more personal. It also meant that once I had joined my fellow classmates, I was able to quickly scan the hall for my family and find them easily. I tried waving at them but they couldn’t see me - I don’t blame them; we did all look identical in our black robes and graduation caps.

Soon enough the ceremony began.

From my seat I watched the procession of teachers, officials and the Vice-Chancellor stride through the hall, one after another in time to the music, before settling into their seats on the stage. Then, one by one, our names are called out. As we are guided towards the stage and I waited, I couldn’t help but feel pride in myself. This was it. Three years of hard work were about to pay off. Then I heard my name called, (including my middle name which the speaker almost mispronounced because it is Elisabeth with an ‘s’ not a ‘z’) and I broke into a grin, hand already outstretched to shake the hand of the vice chancellor and the speaker (who should be given credit for the vast amount of names he had to say that day and on other graduations too).

I was pleased to see that as we each crossed the stage, received our degree and shook hands with the VC, it was caught on camera by the official graduation photographers. Mine was such a good one that my Nana later purchased it, you could practically feel my happiness radiating through the picture. Eventually, all the names had been called, followed by a couple of speeches from the SU President and Christopher Reid the ceremonies Honorary Doctorate who was famous for his poetry. And we were announced by the Vice Chancellor as officially graduated! Everyone clapped and cheered.

Outside, filled with relief and released nervousness now it was over, I celebrated with my classmates with group photos and I waited for my family to make it out of the hall. I posed for more family photos before continuing the celebrations with my family and a meal at Valerie Patisserie.

 

Karla is an English & Creative Writing graduate and will be going on to do a Journalism Masters in September 2018. You can read more about life after graduation on Karla's blog Prettybrowneyes