After a meal, you get to eat dessert. I thought it would be fun to dress up in academic regalia and attend one of the graduation ceremonies. The students I know best right now are mostly in the Masters of HCI program, so I robed up and went to their ceremony.
But first, a sidebar about the robes. There’s a whole involved thing about who can wear what (although when I got to the actual ceremony no one cared). My degree is a Master of Design (M.Des.) from CMU, which, when I earned it, was considered a terminal degree like an MFA, meaning those who do achieve it aren’t supposed to go on to a Ph.D. It’s an end unto itself, unlike other Masters (Master of Arts or Master of Science) degrees, which are often stepping stones to a Ph.D. Some schools allow anyone with a terminal degree to wear Doctoral robes, just with the Master’s flat-topped mortarboard hat and Master’s-length hood. So do I do that, which is a fairly radical stance, or just keep my Masters robes and call it a day? In the end the point was moot because I missed the deadline to order new robes even if I wanted to, so I just went with my Master’s robe (and hat and hood of course). My fine arts brown hood stood out in a sea of yellow Computer Science hoods.
The experience of being on the graduation stage was surreal. Real “through the looking glass” kind of stuff. It feels…rewarding, even though it’s not you being honored. You feel you’re part of something big and timeless and cyclical, which is not a feeling you much get in the tech industry. It’s boring, sure, as you sit through 40 minutes of names of students you don’t know, but that feels like a small price to pay for the halo effect of students’ palpable joy.
I’m looking forward to doing it again next year when I know more students better.