How Covid Will Affect Graduation

By Aidan Wuth

COVID-19 has affected many different parts of schooling negatively, graduation being one of those many casualties.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools have had to convert almost everything to an online environment. Graduation and commencement at Green River College (GRC) are no exception to this. The ceremony will be replicated with a virtual ceremony.

Justin Kwan is a student graduating this year with an Associates in Arts. The majority of his time at GRC was spent taking online classes away from campus. “We saw it coming so we’ll manage with it.” He said, when asked about graduation. While nobody is thrilled about a virtual ceremony, students have been dealing with changes due to the pandemic for over a year now.

The ceremony will be replicated as much as possible to reflect the in-person ceremony that typically happens each year. Awards will still be given out and everybody’s names will be announced among other things on June 18th.

Students are able to have some control over the customization of the slide that will read their names. This is a new feature to graduation that was not in place during the in-person ceremony.

“We all wish we were in the ShoWare together, but there are some unique things that have come that I think I,at least, on the committee worry about how we’re going to replicate when we’re back to the in-person experience.”, said Dan Fergueson, the Director of Student Activities and Engagement at Green River.

Even though graduation is virtual, and the students cannot get the full experience of walking on the stage and hearing their name called out, there are still parts of the virtual ceremony that have been successful that are going to be hard to replicate when in-person ceremonies return, such as the ability to customize the screen that shows their name during the virtual slide show.

As a student going through an online graduation instead of an in-person ceremony, there are pros and cons to a virtual ceremony. While students are able to enjoy the ceremony from the comfort of their homes through the virtual event, they are losing the opportunity to walk across the stage and hear their names called out.