Walking Across a World Stage

Design by Diego Acevedo

On April 26, the New York Times published an article titled “Denied a Second Chance at a Normal Senior Year,” detailing how the COVID-19 pandemic ruined high school graduations for the class of 2020–and that current campus protests might upend the same students’ 2024 college commencements.

Since then, USC, Columbia and other universities have canceled their traditional commencement ceremonies and will only hold major-specific ceremonies, due to pro-Palestine encampments on their campuses. It is likely that other universities will follow suit.

As a member of the high school class of 2020 and one of many students worldwide who had their graduation ruined by a global pandemic, I lived through the experience of ending high school without ceremony or closure.

Our ruined high school graduations were a moment for our generation to recognize that there are things in this world worth paying attention to, as they can affect your life in ways you couldn't have imagined.

But this time around, instead of a pandemic that we didn’t ask for coming to ruin our plans, our generation is the one making plans and statements–and is prepared for the consequences.

Commencement is a party put on by your institution to recognize the education they provided you with. These encampments are the practice and manifestation of the education one received in and outside the classroom over those four years. They are chosen spaces and communities that acknowledge the achievements that occurred over those four years in a different way.

As senior Daniel Martinez put it at last week’s teach-in for Palestine, “Commencement is given to you. Encampments and protests are something you take back.”

In 2020, nobody asked for a global pandemic. Instead, it descended on our homes and lives without permission. These protests across campuses are a radically different experience for college graduates. Many of us are the ones inviting change.

Among those students is senior and Multicultural Center Director Tanvi Syed.

“That is, unfortunately, the only possible way we can make tangible change, other than emailing our local and state representatives and sending constant ceasefire emails,” she said.

These institutions of higher education have taught their students to learn, to pay attention, to read the news and to be informed citizens who act on what they see in the world. The pandemic also taught them that things previously assured to you, like a normal graduation ceremony, can be taken away at a moment's notice.

An education, and a graduation ceremony at the end of that education, are privileges that only a small percentage of the world–and even of this country–can fathom. This idea that this class of students is “cursed” because we can’t seem to have a peaceful graduation ceremony is such an absurdly privileged thing to say.

"We're privileged as students of higher education,” said senior Gillian Tran. “We’re attending such a prestigious university. We have privilege, we have power and we have a voice."

What comes with this privilege is the ability to use one’s education and one’s voice for change.

“We're telling the university what we want,” Tran said. “How we want our graduation to look and who we want to speak at our universities. I don't know why that power is being taken away.”

2020 taught us that global issues can–and will–hit home. It taught many of us that we don’t live in a time where we can just graduate and party without considering other things happening in the world. We’ve been educated to pay attention.