I wonder if they'll play Vitamin C's "Graduation Song" at the ceremony?

With my upcoming graduation from business school this June, I have found myself becoming way more involved in planning for said event. This is probably due to either a late-year rush of grad-school nostalgia or that I allowed myself to be sweet-talked into joining the graduation committee. Yeah…probably the latter.

One of the weirdest things that happened was receiving emails reminding me that the photographer will be on campus for yearbook pictures on such-and-such a date. Upon reading it, I thought to myself “Yearbook pictures? For business school? Why?”. I mean, sure I have good memories from my experience there. I had a good time, met some good friends and all. But…seriously…a yearbook?

As hard as I try to imagine it, I can’t picture what you would put in it. I mean, there are only about five student groups on campus, no sports teams, and no real student life pictures (unless they had photographers stalk us like paparazzi “Here’s Jason leaving from the Jewel with a bag of bananas! Here he’s taking out the garbage! Here he’s making out with Tara Reid at the Viper Room!”). So as far as I can figure out it’s going to consist of pictures of the graduates…and maybe faculty…and that’s pretty much it. Pretty dry stuff.

Even so, let’s say it was the coolest yearbook ever - maybe something like a pop-up book or a choose-your-own adventure theme (“You find yourself facing off against the most convoluted essay question in your Finance mid-term with no idea how to answer the question. How do you answer? To write an answer consisting of nothing but formulas and engineering schematics, turn to page 28. To answer with an essay on why Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton’s friendship went sour, turn to page 76. To feign an epileptic seizure in hopes of getting an extension, turn to page 101.”) – what exactly would be the point? I mean am I expected to run around at the graduation week events, pleading with people to “Sign my yearbook!” like Melissa Joan Hart in “Can’t Hardly Wait”? I think I’d just lose all credibility. Not to mention, what would people write? It’s not like we can get away with the generic affirmations we used in high school like “BFF”, “See ya in English!”, and “Quit following me or I’ll have the court find you in violation of the restraining order!”.

In the end, I chose not to have my picture taken. I’m also not going to get a B-School yearbook. Nor will I get a class ring, or a letterman’s jacket, or dumped in the cafeteria garbage can by the class bully. (But we did have prom last weekend, come to think of it. But *this* time I had an actual *date*!). Regardless…grad school is *so* much better than high school.

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