In-Person Graduation: Deal or No Deal?

Intent to Graduate is up and running on the student's page of MyInfo and closes on February 28th, 2022.  As we enter year three of the global pandemic students can’t help but wonder— will this be another year of online graduation? While online graduation has both positive and negative attributes, many students want an in-person time to celebrate their accomplishments with their friends and family. 

For the case of an online graduation, students are no longer limited to tickets or the number of people who can attend the celebration and many students and their families will no longer need to travel back and forth from the campuses to attend. 

In relation to the in-person graduation, many students will miss out on celebrating their accomplishment and final hooray with friends as students will be limited to only those who are celebrating in their homes. Cassandra a 4th-year interdisciplinary student says she is against online graduation saying that “I sit in a zoom call every day I don’t wanna graduate online”, going on to note that “it feels like I didn’t accomplish much.” Many other students rang in with similar thoughts with being against online graduation with Jade Goodall, a 4th-year student, saying: “Definitely against. Except for the fact that the speeches get super boring.” The graduation ceremonies can run between 2-5 hours depending on the number of attending graduates and how big the school's questions are. 

Connor McLeod offered a different perspective: “I would prefer an in-person graduation but with current circumstances, I guess online grad is the best we will get”. McLeod went on to say: “with the online not online my grades have suffered, I'm just trying to graduate,” which echoes with a lot of students who really struggle with online learning.  

Students from Laurentian have said they would not attend their graduation regardless if it will be in person or online, because it would be so long, but they understood that an in-person graduation does in fact mean more to many students. 

Both campuses as well as other Ontario universities have dates set for both online and in-person graduations, but right now, the in-person graduations are pending due to restrictions. With all our lives being always held up with restrictions is it no wonder graduating students feel like they are missing out on something big, but students for the past two years have also been missing out. The schools do need to follow pandemic guidelines set by the provincial government and are in very little control of what they can and can not run.