Graduation

Many parties accompany graduation whether college, high school or even junior high or elementary. These can be expensive, luxurious affairs or simple recognitions. Our church recently recognized its high school and college graduates with robes of various colors. Colorful, exciting for family and friends. And meaningful.

One thing in particular caught my attention. Each graduate was to give their name, school and plans after graduation. I believe most of them had plans to go to college, whether private or public, local or distant. In addition to the name of the institution, they told of their study plans. Now I understand that even junior high grads when asked often will reveal their choice beyond high school and what they want to study.

My senior moment arrived when I thought of my own high school graduation. It was back in 1945, the war was winding down, and many of us had no college picked out. It wasn't the in- thing then. Some of the students had already enlisted (hoping to secure their choice rather than await the draft as I did). Our future was not ours to decide. I graduated but remember little of any pomp and circumstance and found odd jobs while awaiting the inevitable summons from the draft board. It came, and I passed the army physical but before I was sworn in, I was summoned by a Naval recruiter and ended up in the Navy.

Years later, I was on the faculty of a couple of colleges and was called on to advise mostly Freshmen but also others who were struggling with their choice of a major and future career. One of my favorite responses to their serious inquiries was to suggest that they treat their college (university) degree as though it were a passport, not a guarantee of a career or job. A passport would let them into many places they could not enter without one.

Often I witnessed serious students changing their major, sometimes more than once. I also saw graduates entering the workplace doing a job which had little to do with their degree. Their degree was their passport and employers often looked for other dimensions of a graduate beyond a degree. Now I wonder. Has this all changed and is a degree no longer possibly considered as a passport?