Faux Graduation

Warning: mildly introspective post with a hint of nostalgia and a twist of bitterness

Today’s my faux graduation day.  By that I mean that I technically have two classes left to take this summer, but if I wanted to I could walk in my graduation ceremony today.  But I don’t want to.  So I’m taking the day off and spending it with girlfriends and my husband.  I’ve been talking with a lot of people about this lately, and most people think I’m somehow depriving myself and my family of the pinnacle moment of my college career.  They are shocked, as if not celebrating the culmination of all those years of academic toil is some affront to the system.  Here’s the thing, if I did walk it would be kind of preemptive, since, like I said earlier, I’m still not technically done with school.  And though my school is a wonderful place to have a degree from, I don’t feel the same connection to it as some of my past schools.

In high school I was the super-involved, live-breathe-eat-sleep school and extracurriculars kind of person.  I loved high school.  I’m pretty strange in this regard compared to most people I know, but it’s probably why I gravitate towards writing for younger audiences.  Sure there were things that sucked, and sure I wanted to break out of the mold and go to college, but I loved my friends and what I was doing.

When I first started college at Emerson College in Boston, I loved being on my own in a city.  The school didn’t end up being the right place for me, but the classes I took changed me.  At Emerson I could actually major in Writing, Literature, and Publishing and Theater Education, which I loved.  I took a ton of writing classes, one of which was Children’s Writing with Eden Edwards, then-editor at Houghton Mifflin.  We were supposed to write a short story for a middle grade audience and then revise it two times.  Eden saw my writing and said, “This is good.  Don’t revise it.  Write me more chapters.”  Those became the start of my first middle grade novel, and more importantly, I found my voice.  I found the genre that worked for me, and the tone and storytelling style.  I was introduced to the SCBWI and many other fabulous resources.  That class is what changed me.  That’s what I came for.  Plus I got my husband out of the deal.

After I left Emerson I took a few years off to work full time.  Working full time made me realize I wanted to go back to school and get my degree.  I was accepted to UCLA, but because of residency issues, I started in the winter quarter.  There was none of the blush of freshman year, or even the joy of starting something new in the fall.  It was just showing up and working hard.

UCLA is gorgeous and though the Communications degree isn’t the one I would have preferred (UCLA doesn’t have an undergrad Creative Writing program), the classes I took informed my writing, because they informed my life.  Still, I wasn’t thrilled to show up to class, excited by what I could learn.  Class was a duty, and while interesting, it didn’t increase my affinity towards the college.  I never lived on campus or did any extracurriculars, and the close friends I made there either aren’t walking or aren’t graduating today.  So please don’t hold it against me if I don’t want to park very far away from school and then walk in my expensive cap and gown with a mass of sweaty students to accept an empty diploma cover.  Maybe I’m a little bitter, but it’s my choice and that’s what is important to my family.  They don’t care if I walk.

Not walking doesn’t mean I’m not graduating.  Not walking doesn’t mean there won’t be a feeling of success when I’m actually done with school, that my parents won’t feel the same joy/relief that they would if they saw me cross the stage.  The ritual of walking only makes the success sweeter if you invest in the system.   For a lot of my life, all I wanted to do was get to the point where I was doing things for me and not because the system required them.  I don’t like systems.  I’m not walking.  But that doesn’t mean I won’t be celebrating.

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