Reflections on graduation, and everything it’s taken to get here.

It’s strange how something you’ve been working toward for years — something that you’ve dreamt of like a form of salvation — can arrive so suddenly. Graduation, that looming, abstract milestone, has a way of feeling both impossibly far away and then all at once, unavoidably here. A paradoxical paradise and prison wrapped up in a pretty bow. One minute you’re figuring out where your classes are, and the next you’re standing at the edge of something that feels much bigger than a ceremony and 10 times as heavy as your cap and gown.

There’s excitement, of course. How could there not be? Graduation is proof of your endurance. It’s the amalgamation of your late nights and early mornings, stress and burnout and those small moments of clarity that you strung together with your own blood, sweat and tears into something that resembles achievement. It’s the satisfaction of knowing you made it through — through assignments you thought would break you, through exams that felt insurmountable, through entire semesters where motivation seemed like a theoretical concept. There is a real, undeniable pride in reaching the end.

Sitting alongside that excitement, however, is something less concrete and harder to name. A kind of unease. A feeling that this moment, which is supposed to feel like a conclusion, doesn’t quite wrap things up as neatly as you might have hoped.

How can one event possibly encompass years’ worth of effort?

It’s difficult not to reduce everything to the symbolism of it all: a stage, a handshake and a piece of paper. The simplicity of the ceremony feels almost at odds with the complexity of what it represents. Years of learning, of changing and growing into someone new — condensed into a few seconds of recognition. Just enough time for you to cross the stage, pose for a photograph and hear your loved ones cheer. It raises a question that lingers longer than expected: Is a degree really representative of everything you’ve done?

At first, the answer to that seems simple, instinctive. Obviously not. How could a piece of paper and two minutes of a three-hour-long ceremony reflect your years of gruelling academic hardships?

A degree doesn’t capture the moments that didn’t make it into your transcripts. It says nothing of the deep conversations you’ve had with professors and peers that completely shifted your perspective, the failures that forced you to lock in, the friendships that became foundational to who you’ve become. It doesn’t reflect the version of yourself that arrived on campus, meek, uncertain and tentative, compared to the one that’s leaving, weathered, weary and shaped by experience in ways that are difficult to verbalize.

Yet, that brief moment, when your name is called in a hall full of hundreds, means something. Even if it’s imperfect, even if it simplifies something that cannot be simplified, it still stands as a symbol. Not of everything, but of enough. A symbol that tells the world that you were capable. That you had enough persistence, enough discipline, enough willingness to keep going when stopping would have been easier.

There’s also something undeniably liberating about graduation. The thought creeps in almost immediately — hooray, I’m finally free! Free from deadlines, from readings, from the constant undercurrent of dread — something needing to be done, but not being able to put a finger on what exactly that is. Free from structuring your life around a syllabus and your professor’s office hours. There’s a lightness in imagining a life that’s not dictated by academic calendars or exam schedules any longer.

However,  that freedom is complicated.

Because right behind it comes another thought, smaller but scarier — what comes next?

University has a way of providing structure, even when it feels chaotic. There are expectations, timelines and clear markers of progress. You know what you’re working toward, even if you’re not entirely sure why. It acts as a shield between you and distant relatives who ask what you’re up to these days. It gives you a sense of abstract purpose. A goal you’re slowly working towards. 

Graduation disrupts that. It removes the support scaffolding that you’ve unknowingly built your life upon without immediately replacing it. Suddenly, your path forward in life feels less defined, more open in a way that is both exciting and deeply petrifying.

There is pressure in that openness. The idea that now, more than ever, you are responsible for shaping what comes next. Your life is truly in your own hands. The choices you make carry a different kind of weight. It’s no longer about choosing classes or majors, but about choosing directions, careers and identities.

What if you don’t know?

That uncertainty can feel like failure, even though it isn’t. There’s an unspoken expectation that graduation should come with clarity, with a plan neatly mapped out guiding you towards your inevitable finish line. However, for many, it doesn’t. Instead, it comes with questions. Am I ready? Did I make the right choices? Did I pick the wrong degree? What if I change my mind?

In that sense, graduation is less of an ending and more of a transition into a different kind of ambiguity.

It’s also a moment that invites reflection in ways that are difficult to avoid. Looking back becomes almost inevitable. You think about who you were when you first enrolled, what you thought these years would look like. You remember the things that mattered to you then and compare them to what matters now. More often than not, they’re not the same at all.

You come to the realization that growth doesn’t always look the way you expect it to. It’s not always visible or linear. Sometimes it’s minute, almost imperceptible until you’re forced to look at it all at once. Graduation creates that moment. It forces you to pause and acknowledge that everything has changed, even if you can’t fully articulate how.

At the same time, there’s a sense of loss that threads through the excitement. University is not just a place of learning, but a space where a particular version of life exists. One where your primary responsibility is to learn, to explore, to experiment with who you are and who you might become. Leaving that behind means letting go of a certain kind of freedom, even as you gain another.

It means saying goodbye to routines that once felt tedious but are now strangely comforting. To spaces that became familiar without you realizing it. To people who may not be as present in your life moving forward.

Graduation, then, becomes a collection of contradictions. It is both an ending and a beginning. Both relief and anxiety. Both pride and doubt. It is the culmination of years of effort and the starting point of something that feels far less certain.

Maybe that’s why it feels so difficult to fully come to terms with.

Because it isn’t just one thing. It isn’t just a celebration, or a conclusion or a stepping stone. It’s all of those things at once. It’s a moment that can’t be simplified, even as it’s packaged into a ceremony that tries to do exactly that.

So yes, a piece of paper cannot fully represent everything you’ve done. It cannot capture the complexity of your experience or the depth of your growth. But it doesn’t have to. 

It’s not supposed to be the whole trip — it’s more like the souvenir you got from it.

What matters more is everything that exists beyond it. The knowledge that you carry with you, the resilience you’ve built and the ways you’ve learned to navigate uncertainty. Those things don’t end at graduation. If anything, they become even more important.

But maybe that’s the point.

Graduation isn’t about neatly tying together the past or providing clear answers about the future. It’s about standing in the vast canyon between the two and acknowledging what you’ve done while stepping into what you don’t yet know.

It’s exciting. It’s terrifying. It’s freeing. It’s overwhelming. It’s everything, all wrapped up together in a pretty bow, all at once.

Congratulations to the class of 2026! To everyone who’s still chipping away at the stone — enjoy your time while it lasts, the workforce is coming for you, too.