The University of Birmingham has recently communicated to its final year students that their July graduation ceremonies have now been rescheduled to March 2021, due to the continued measures put in place to tackle the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. This decision may seem disappointing to students who had been looking forward to a summer graduation and a celebration in July. But, this is preferable to the solution of completely cancelling in-person graduation ceremonies- a situation which many students across the world are facing. 

Many universities are taking the decision that graduation ceremonies will be cancelled and instead will be solely online. Universities across America for example will be livestreaming the ceremony, accompanied with musical performances and recorded commencement speeches. This is unfortunately a world-wide phenomenon, affecting millions of students across the globe. Business Breakthrough University in Tokyo similarly had to move to a virtual ceremony, but came up with an imaginative solution which included robots dressed in gowns with students using zoom to show their faces on tablets. Though these solutions may be inspired it is still a hard reality that students are being forced to forego a celebration of their achievements.

Graduation ceremonies typically give students an opportunity to celebrate their hard work, and bring together their friends and family for a final time. It marks a time before friends move apart to take on new challenges in the workplace, and offers a wonderful opportunity to say goodbye to people who have become an integral part of their life over several years. An online ceremony cannot equal the experience of this celebration. Students will be unable to take traditional graduation photographs, put on a cap and gown and physically collect their degree certificates, which one may see as a rite of passage in university life. 

This comes after an abrupt end to their final year, with classes and assessments moved online almost instantly back in March. Many were then left in the dark about how their final assessments would be completed, which would heavily affect their final degree classification. Understandably, this will have caused a great deal of stress and anxiety, and decisions about graduations prove to be an additional concern. Universities such as Manchester Metropolitan University are currently in the process of trying to make new arrangements for their students, and reschedule graduation, and though positive news, it still means students are in limbo with no solid information to look to. 

Some may see this problem as small in comparison to what is going on in the world, and though this may be true, it is important to acknowledge that this remains an issue that will affect millions of individuals, and will leave them with a retrospective gap when looking back at the university life. Instead of having their final years filled with memories, and probably quite a bit of stress, it will now be defined by an unprecedented situation. 

Though this situation is affecting everyone, I believe it is the responsibility of universities to ensure students receive the proper celebrations, even though they will have to be postponed. Students have worked extremely hard over their past few years at university, and many will have paid a great deal of money for that privilege. But this comes with the understanding that they will be given the opportunity to celebrate their achievements with their friends and family. 

Unfortunately, this may not be possible for every institution and many will have to make do with online celebrations instead. One thing is for sure, the global ‘Class of 2020’ will be a cohort that will look back on their university experience with sadly mixed emotions.

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Check out some other Comment articles about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic:

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