A closer look: Grads walk for varied reasons

Walking across a temporary stage in Pauley Pavilion as the names
of 2,000 classmates scroll across the Jumbotron isn’t exactly
a picture of pomp and circumstance for every UCLA grad.

While graduation ceremonies mark the end to years of mastering
math equations, memorizing chemical formulas, and dealing with
those lines at the Ackerman post office, ceremonies also serve as
the last step before college students stop being students and
confront the realities of life off campus.

But of the approximately 3,500 undergraduates who will have
their degrees conferred in June, only a fraction are expected to
participate in the College of Letters & Science ceremony
““ the largest on campus, expected to draw 8,000 people. Of
those who are walking, many say they’re doing it under
pressure from camera-toting family members, and not because the
formality is important to them.

It is not as if there are so many students staying away that
Westwood might be lonely. An estimated 8,000 will attend the UCLA
College commencement on June 18, and reservations for the UCLA
Guest House were booked a year ago for that weekend. But at a
university where many of this year’s graduates fought for
admission four years earlier, now they just want to get out.

Fed up with the crowds and limited supply of tickets on hand for
the College commencement, some are abandoning it altogether in
favor of smaller departmental ceremonies.

Annie Choi, a fourth-year sociology student, said she will be
attending the department’s ceremony instead of the College
one, which she calls “too big.”

Choi admits that students might not feel the same sense of
transition after college as they did after high school ““
contributing to a sense of ambivalence about participating in any
ceremony at all. Still, Choi, who compared the day to the Christmas
and New Year’s holidays combined, said she won’t miss
it.

“I can’t imagine not participating,” she
said.

The only bad thing, she concedes, is that she has one more class
to finish after summer school.

In contrast to the dullness of the larger College commencement
holds for some students, the ceremonies for individual departments
appeal to many.

Miguel Arambula, a fourth-year international development studies
student, will be walking in the ceremony for the International
Institute, but not the ceremony for the UCLA College. He is
uninterested in the latter ceremony because he said it “would
be boring ““ too big, too general.”

But others, some under pressure from relatives who are flying to
Los Angeles from out of town, don’t see the big deal. David
Strich, a fourth-year history student, appreciates the significance
of graduation even though he will be walking for his parents.

“I’m graduating for myself but the ceremony is for
them. It’s the one time they get to see what I’ve
done,” he said.

Chi Leed, a third-year transfer student studying electrical
engineering, said he too will attend his graduation ceremony
because his parents want him to.

Sometimes, commencement circumstances are a bit more
twisted.

President Bush missed the commencement ceremonies for
22-year-old twin daughters Jenna and Barbara, who graduated from
the University of Texas and Yale University, respectively, in May.
Jenna graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English, Barbara
in humanities.

First Lady Laura Bush attended Yale’s university-wide
commencement and a smaller ceremony for Barbara’s residential
college.

Aides have said President Bush decided to skip his
daughters’ graduations because their presence and that of
White House security would be disruptive.

Jenna Bush simply “decided she didn’t want to go to
the ceremony. No other reason,” said Gordon Johndroe, a
spokesman for Laura Bush.

He added that it is fairly common for students at large
universities to skip commencement. For Saturday night’s
university-wide ceremony, which includes general recognition of the
school’s entire graduating class of 8,061, only about 3,000
students sought tickets.

There is some family precedent. The first lady skipped the
ceremonies when she earned her master’s degree in library
science at the University of Texas in 1973.

The university is the largest campus in the country and several
thousand students were scheduled to graduate. English students
graduated in one of several smaller ceremonies on campus.

Parental pressure is an imposing factor for some students, but
others arrange their graduation ceremony attendance according to
their own interests.

And while some students find graduation ceremonies monotonous,
others take advantage of them as an opportunity to celebrate their
collegiate accomplishments.

“I wanted to walk because I didn’t graduate high
school, so it’s my first time graduating,” said Ronak
Kavian, a fourth-year neuroscience student.

Though she takes pride in walking, she said that most of her
friends do not seem to care about it.

“A lot of people just do it for their families,” she
said.

With reports from Bruin wire services.