This month marks one year since graduation ceremonies had to be held remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and organizations alike are glad to once again return to some level of normalcy this year with an in-person, socially distanced graduation that allows the celebration of the unique cultures present at Texas A&M through student-led ceremonies.
This year, graduation will consist of eight different ceremonies, the first of which began last Saturday, May 8, at 9 a.m. for graduate and professional students. Ceremonies for master’s and undergraduate students will begin Wednesday, May 12, with the College of Veterinary Medicine, Biomedical Sciences and the College of Engineering.
Graduating communication senior Kennedi Del Bosque said although the current state of the world requires an alternative experience, she doesn’t believe it will change the spirit of graduation.
“I feel like circumstances do make an alternative experience that is semi-restrictive,” Del Bosque said. “However, I don’t think that it will drastically affect the graduation experience for this semester seniors … I think the school has done a pretty good job advocating for students to be safe and to consider the vaccine to get our campus back to normal.”
Student-led organizations have also been holding their own celebrations in the weeks leading up to graduation. A member of the LatinX Graduation Coalition and political science major Rachel Mondragon said the organization held its celebration this past Sunday, honoring the different aspects of LatinX culture.
“We try to implement our culture within our own identities into a ceremony,” Mondragon said. “We [implemented] different aspects of our culture with things like having a Mariachi band there and by having Ballet Folorico, which is folk dancing from Mexican culture and other cultures as well.”
Although these ceremonies cannot return completely, Mondragon said she believes students will still be able to enjoy graduation, even if it is not how they imagined it might commence.
“I think they will still have a good graduation experience; I don’t think it is the one they anticipated, which is understandable considering COVID[-19] just came out of nowhere,” Mondragon said. “But I don’t think they will be disappointed with the graduation we are trying to put on for them this year. The fact that we even organized one in person says a lot on our behalf to try and get that for our own community.”
The president of the Black Student Alliance Council, or BSAC, Matthew B. Francis Jr., said the BSAC was also able to hold its Black Graduation Celebration last month.
“The ceremony was to celebrate all of our Black students,” Francis said. “We had a keynote speaker [as well as a] speaker from the Black student network who gave some words on how students can give back to those who are coming into Texas A&M.”
Francis also discussed some of the challenges the BSAC faced holding its celebration during the pandemic.
“A lot of people wanted to come … and some of the graduates wanted to bring more people,” Francis said, “but with COVID[-19] we had to reduce the number of people that we had and also the experience as a whole.”
In the end, however, both the Latinx Graduation Coalition and the BSAC are happy they were once again able to hold ceremonies important to the diverse community present at A&M.
“Graduation is a big step in anybody’s life, and I think it’s important we highlight those accomplishments in life, but also recognize the impact it has on our own families and our own cultures and kind of breaking these generational curses of not seeking higher education, which is important,” Mondragon said.
For a more detailed schedule of graduation consisting of all college graduation dates and times, please visit Texas A&M’s graduation calendar here.