Honorary Degree

Incase you missed it in a previous post, facebook, twitter, or in person… I GRADUATED!!! 

Holy hell, I never thought that day would come. No, I never really planned on dropping out but when you enter college directly from high school and you are facing a 7 year program, the end seems far away. The days drag on when you are working full time and going to school for 3 to 6 hours for a few nights a week. Also, when I entered the median age was somewhere around 35. Plus the graduation rate is 8%. So the fact that I, along with the other 121 students, graduated this year is pretty damn impressive. Round of applause for us!!!

I was so excited to be done but I had an issue with something. And that something was this GD lame beret that we all had to wear. Sure it honors one of the long-standing past presidents of the college. But why? Why can’t I have my tassel to flip over when I am officially done? Plus have you seen people in Berets… come on! I grumbled but finally put it on at the last-minute.

 We, the students, grouped up outside of the school to take a class photo. I wonder if I ever get a copy? Then we lined up to walk a few blocks down to Old South Church, where the commencement was being held. Leading us on our trek was a Dixieland band. It was pretty funny to see people staring at the gaggle of us marching down Newbury Street  with a band in front.

 

Since the Bachelor of Architecture Degree has a handful of graduates Price and I got to sit next to each other in the second row. The benefit of having alphabetically close last names. 🙂

The graduation ceremony ran a bit over 2 hours. There were a series of awards, honorary degrees, and speeches that were for us and for the architecture community. One of the things mentioned was how active our school is with activities and outreach, one of which is the semster down in Biloxi for post Katrina building… which Pricer did!!!

 Mayor Thomas M. Menino was our graduation speaker. He received and honorary degree for Doctor in Sustainable Communities for his involvement in transforming the city into a Green city. It was pretty cool to have him speak at the graduation. I can’t really tell you what he was talking about since I was so distracted from being so hot from 1) several hundred people stuffed into a church 2) no AC 3) robe 4) wool beret. I just remember about him saying how he has just made a bunch of people mad after he said we must remember the scale of Boston and we can’t have any big skyscrapers…. which is what he was trying to pass just a few years ago.

 After Menino spoke the handing out of fake diplomas began….