It’s been a few days since I graduation from San Diego City College on Thursday, finally getting to walk after having completed all my required coursework in the Summer of last year and my degree not issued until the conclusion of the Fall 2024 semester. Dated December 16, 2024 and received in the mail back on March 3rd of this year, it’s an accomplishment that’s been stuck in a state of suspense and nice to finally have played out in full.
I was curious as to how I would feel that day, having never done a graduation walk before; I had tested out of high school at the start of my senior year, obtaining a legal diploma equivalent by way of the California High School Proficiency Exam (CHSPE). Thereafter, I had made peace with living a life in which I would not be a college student/graduate, and the opportunity to walk for a graduation ceremony a faint and highly unlikely possibility. I never really felt like I missed out on anything special by skipping my high school senior year and its processions, and after 20 years of mentally treating graduation ceremonies as something so personally meaningless, was unsure where my perspective would land that day.
It ultimately ended up being a very gratifying experience. I wore my regalia while I took the dog out for a walk before heading down to Balboa Park to check in for the commencement ceremony in the early afternoon. It was nice to show off to everyone I know, and to get congratulatory acknowledgements from strangers throughout the entire day.
While it’s been great to bask in the accomplishment, reality doesn’t wait, and I immediately have the matter of financing the summer session and choosing classes for the upcoming Fall semester to contend with.
Not only that, the commencement ceremony also brought a bittersweet poignancy to matter. Getting my associate’s degree is something I’ve already done, it’s time and effort already spent that I no longer have ahead of me as my future but instead as my past; that much older and done through this life. And in a more immediate context, the challenge of putting these degrees to work and materializing a return on this investment—and pay off the student loan debt incurred to obtain them—isn’t that far away off. Seeing as how even graduate-level professionals with advanced degrees are facing high uncertainty and competition in the modern job market, getting academic credentials is only a part of the process.
This student life of mine is only slated to last for another calendar year, presuming everything goes according to plan between now and then. That means that on top of keeping things together academically between now and the slated finish line next Spring, I’ve also got a lot of other areas of personal development to vigorously work on: health & physical fitness, real-world social networks, creative output and hobbies, interpersonal relationship management, the list goes on.
All my adult life, my approach has been to keep my head low, do hard and good work, and learn as much as possible. Doing that independently taught me a lot, now being further reinforced by the standards of collegiate education in business studies. But I also realize it’s time to start changing tack and doing “more” to make something out of both myself and my recently-changed legal name.