Thankfully, for both our boys, we were able to avoid the BIG graduation ceremony. At UMass Amherst, the Commonwealth College, which is the honors group, had it's own recognition ceremony two weeks before the regular graduation. At that time, the graduates were announced individually, and each walked across the stage and received a special gold cord to wear on their gowns at graduation. Since they were in gowns for this, we asked Paul if we could just attend that one, take pictures, and call it his graduation. He was fine with that; in fact, he didn't even go to the big one. At the time, he worked part time for the local transit system driving buses. He was able to make some extra money that day driving shuttle buses for folks parking at the outlying lots so they could get to the stadium. He graduates from Law School on Mother's Day, and we're planning to be there!
At Carnegie Mellon, the Computer Science Department had it's own 'Graduation Ceremony' in the afternoon after the big one on campus. At the big one, they just called out each 'school' and all of those graduates stood in a group. At the small one, each graduate got his or her name announced and got to walk across the stage. It was very special, because the one who did the announcing was their Class Advisor, and he knew each graduate personally, and gave a little statement about each one that was positive or humorous or both.
Heh heh...yep...if he wants to do the ceremony, he'll have to do the big "walk across the stage in a cap, gown and hood" thing.
I'm personally looking forward to the jedis seeing it. It should be impressive to them and something they'll always remember. Dad done with school...he's gone to school all their lives just about.
Of course, I'll take pictures...