First Covid, now protests: these USC seniors have never had a traditional graduation
It was very obvious that the decision to cancel commentary that it was to punish people and turn people against the protesters. The University of Southern California cancelled its mainstage commencement ceremony amid ongoing protests on campus. It felt like it was a little bit dramatic that they cancelled it, but I’m sure that they have reasons for why. I was really upset at that, because that’s something I’ve been looking forward to my entire time at USC to have my moment at main commencement. The university told students that with new safety measures, it would take too long to process the expected 65,000 attendees. But it would still hold individual school ceremonies. I was a little bit heartbroken at first, just because. You know, it took a lot for me to get to USC. I got rejected twice before I got into the journalism school. College graduation is super big. I think it’s a culmination of four years of the relationships that you built with the people that you’ve met at university, the hard work that you spent, you know, each night grinding on a project or assignments. Many of these students didn’t have a traditional high school graduation in 2020 because of the pandemic. The feelings that I have, the main commencement was cancelled were very, very, very reminiscent of the ones I had when my own high school graduation was cancelled. When I was just shooting at high school, my commencement was, you know, virtual. I was not walking across the stage. I was walking across my living room being able to experience campus in this way. Is to me more important than being able to stand or sit and watch like some commencement speakers speak, because I’m going to see one of them speak anyway at my satellite graduation. It’s a really tough time, and I want us all to still be able to celebrate, you know, this big milestone while still being cognizant that there’s a lot going on in the world and hopefully. We, our generation, can be the ones to make things a little bit better.