The Big Day

Whew! I've been in a whirlwind the past three weeks. My apologies for not posting sooner, but now I can tell you all about graduation with plenty of detail and pictures for support.



My graduation was especially wonderful because my dear family was here with me; in fact, we spent more time together than we had originally planned, since all four of us were crammed into my tiny apartment for three nights. On graduation day we hurried down to campus to attend the graduation mass at Madonna Della Strada Chapel. The sanctuary was so crowded with graduates, faculty, and parents that we were forced to stand through the whole two hour service, but it was a beautiful ceremony, and it reminded me how fortunate I was to attend a school that respects the religious beliefs of the students (a rare thing in higher education).


Me with my friends Samantha (lt) and Emily (rt) at the reception

The graduation ceremony was interesting. I found that I was much less excited about this graduation than the one last year, and it seems that everyone else felt the same way, since the whole process was very laid back. The speeches from faculty were kept fairly short, placed strategically inbetween spurts of school propoganda from the alumni council asking for school involvement and financial support. The real length of the ceremony was determined by a choice (an unwise choice, in my opinion) to read the description of doctoral theses after the name of each PhD candidate. I pitied the poor faculty member chosen to announce the PhDs, since she had to struggle not only with the names of the students, at least half of whom were foriegn, but she also had to pronounce five-syllable chemistry and biology terms. It took over an hour and a half to announce the 75 PhD students, and then about twenty minutes to announce the 300 Masters. But all in all, it was a good ceremony. They pronounced my name correctly, and I didn't trip over my own feet while I was on the stage, so I really couldn't ask for more.