Pomp and Anxious Circumstances

The School of Management has dealt its graduates a final blow. After scalping us with “student fees”, picking favorites with TA’s in “the Old Boys’ Club” who arrange cash-grab tutorials, assigning us professors who don’t even pretend to read our work or their own email, allowing cheaters and posers to steal copies of exams while administration turns a blind eye, and making us wait in long queues only to discover that our final required class or prerequisite is already full (sorry!) we are relegated to suffering through the long-awaited convocation ceremony at 9:30 in the morning on a weekday.

Did this “education” not prepare us adequately for the work world? Perhaps the administration doubts the ability of its graduates to find REAL JOBS. That is, real day jobs. Why do I have to book a whole Wednesday off for this? Why waste my precious vacation time? Why not schedule it for the evening or the weekend, or even 8:00 – a normal workday start – so that we can get back to the office after lunch?

Ah, you say, but the School might just assume that graduates put so much VALUE on this important event in their lives, that a missed day of work in the middle of the week is of no consequence. Oh yes indeed. So what will this ceremony offer to ME as a symbol of academic accomplishment (other than a single sheet of paper which I might easily have received in the mail?)

Let’s do some simple calculations. If the ceremony is 3 hours (9:30-12:30), we’ll allocate at least 30 minutes for grandiose speeches and other rhetoric aimed at past and current students, the bestowing of honorary doctorates on various presidents and generals, exhortations for world peace, and applause.

That leaves no more than 9,000 seconds for the other 652 of us, of which perhaps a dozen award-winners will clamor for a larger share in which to accept their cheap plaques. That’s an average of 13.8 seconds per person. How very sad.

Here's how I'd break it down:
* 5.5 seconds to walk from the back of the stage to the middle while your name is being called (for me, 3.75). That's a long time because the average girl is wearing high heels.
* 2.25 seconds to put your hand in the dean's hand and grab the diploma with the other and turn for the cameras
* 1.75 seconds to hold that pose for the cameras
* 2 seconds to walk to the top of the stairs
* 3.5 seconds to walk down the stairs
* Total = 15 seconds because during the final 1.2 seconds (while you’re halfway down the stairs) they are calling the next name and that is part of the next person's 5.5 second walk and name announcement.

Should I get a bonus for shaving off 2.25 seconds? Ennui! I’ll smuggle a good book under my robe.