RSSCommencement
May 21st, 2007 | View Comments
Graduation weekend here at CMU has come and gone. After three years here, I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around CMU’s idea of commencement, with doctoral hoods, diplomas, and degrees conferred at three separate ceremonies. This seems to me, a product of UW-Madison’s ruthlessly efficient commencement process, unnecessarily complicated.
There is a certain art to writing a thesis title because it’s going to have to be read out loud with ceremonial pomp and circumstance. So that fifty-word monstrosity may look appropriately formidable on the cover of your printed and bound dissertation, but may make the audience chuckle when your advisor runs out of breath mid- sub-sub-subtitle. Worse, if everybody writes a monstrosity of a thesis title, the ceremony is going to take three hours and faculty are going to start passing out on stage.
On the other hand, if your title is something like “Multiple Sources of Data,*” people are going to be like, “Whaaat?? That’s not a dissertation!“
Someone should design a dissertation title drinking game.
“…model…” Drink!
“…computational…” Drink!
“…intelligent…” Drink!
And if the advisors knock the cap off the advisee’s head while trying to hood him/her, finish your drink.
The doctoral hooding ceremony was on Saturday night, complete with bagpipes. I always enjoy seeing the faculty in their assorted caps and gowns and wondering which institution failed to realize that yellow robes with black PhD stripes make you look like a scholarly bumblebee. CMU graduates go with the standard black cap and gown, with plaid Tartan fabric lining the inside of the hood. It looks cooler than it sounds.
Speaking of hoods, who designed the shape of a doctoral hood, which looks like a cross between a paper airplane and a mushroom? Maybe it’s a coded message. “I needed so many drugs to get me here that now I think I can fly.”
With luck, I’ll have my own hood at this time next year. In the meantime, back to the grind.
*Not an actual thesis title. At least not to my knowledge.
Yvonne posted this on May 21st, 2007 @ 6:59am in Graduate School | Permalink to "Commencement"
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2. Yvonne » May 22nd, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Yep. It literally takes all weekend to graduate.
For comparison’s sake, UW-Madison can finish a commencement ceremony for 2000 undergrads in one hour flat, complete with keynote speaker and every single person walking across the stage individually to receive their diploma (cover).
1. Peter » May 22nd, 2007 at 11:21 am
Wait- so you go to three separate ceremonies? One to get your hood, one for the diploma, and one to say you actually graduated? LAME!