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CHEREOGE

In My Graduate Era

Attending my first graduation...


For those that follow me on Twitter or Snapchat, you saw the videos, you saw the tweets, one year after graduating and I can now officially accept I AM NO LONGER A STUDENT.


All it took was walking across that stage to end that chapter and dare I say, it was the perfect ending.



LOOKING BACK…

Uni was like, my initiation to depression. If I had to sum up my first year in one sentence it’d be ‘I had the shiniest wheels now they’re rusting’. Coming from Secondary school, where I was an outstanding student with stable mental health, surrounded by my friends, my biggest problem was I’d make a fool of myself in front of one of the boys I had a crush on; to uni where I knew absolutely NOTHING happening around me. I could not find my classes, I did not know how to register for courses, I could not navigate Blackboard, never knew when things were due, was lost in class, it felt like everyone already knew each other, I felt out of my curve, I was fighting for my life every day of first year, literally crying and throwing up, I kid you not, MY DIARY ENTRIES ARE PROOF!

First year was catastrophic and second year? I wasn’t even fighting for my life anymore. I was dead and gone and buried. My grades were on life support, my mental health was the worst it has been in my whole life, I had never experienced failure in my entire and it was hitting me hard!


Then I started meeting people I’d end up being friends with, I started understanding things around me, and second semester of second year.., that was my point of inflexion, literally, the trajectory of my life switched.


I feel like it happened so fast that to date, I still use it as my salve that nothing is ever as bad as the present makes it look. I can be going through the worst week and I’d be like, this would not even matter in the future. Sure it’s intense now and I’m feeling miserable now but one year from now I’d look back and ask myself how I ever thought I’d never get through it.


3rd and 4th year, were the best years of my uni life and I think that was my peak of self-discovery. Special shout out to the semester the pandemic hit. I’m so happy I lived on campus during that period cause that would go down in mystory as one of my happiest years. I don’t know what that says about me but 2020 is my version of other people’s summer 016.


PRESENTLY…

I’m grateful my original grad was online, cause if it was in person, I wouldn’t have attended, but now that I’ve dabbled in adulting for a year, seen what life after school is like, I appreciate the experience more. I feel like this should be an option, graduands should be given the option to attend their grad the year they graduate, or the year after because if we’re being honest, most students are probably so anxious about post-grad to actually enjoy their graduation.


I’m also happy I got to go for this one, cause shocker, it’s the first graduation, I’ve attended. I went from Primary 4 to Secondary School so I did not have a Primary school graduation. On the day of my Secondary school graduation, I was on a flight to the U.S (I can’t even remember where we were going to now), silently crying on the plane cause I was in my feelings.


I did an accelerated Grade 12 program in Canada before I started Uni and I missed my grad ceremony for that cause I came late, but it was just in time to take pictures, for what it’s worth. I almost missed my Uni grad because of the pandemic but thank God for second chances.



For anyone thinking of not attending their grad, I just want to let you know the actual ceremony is boring, you have to sit through all the speeches, you get tired of clapping, you wait till they call all the names, BUT, there is just something about walking across that stage, a sense of fulfilment. I don’t know, it’s like closure. It’s Veni, Vedi, Vici, Next Chapter Please.


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