Graduation Day

Today is 5th May 2020, a Tuesday.

Normally, it is a day where the graduating batch of students dons the graduation gown, wait for their names to be called, go up the auditorium stage, receive their graduation certificate which signaled the end of their 3 years polytechnic life.

Afterward, everyone would gather at the large space outside the auditorium to chat, talk, and take pictures with friends, family, and teachers.

Throwing of graduation caps into the air with a loud cheer from everyone might have been done. But unfortunately, this isn't the case for the graduating batch of students of 2020.

Due to the coronavirus situation in Singapore, the government has made a difficult decision to cancel the graduation ceremony for all ITE and Polytechnic students. This decision was announced in the first week of April.

Many of the graduating students were very disappointed and distraught by this piece of news. It is understandable why most students feel this way as the graduation ceremony is a once in a lifetime event and a way to celebrate the hard work they put into the past 3 years. It is an event where one would still remember even 10, 20, or 30 years down the road.

Hoping to postpone the ceremony instead of canceling it, a petition was made and many students signed it. I signed it as well. To this date, we are unsure if it will make a difference. But the fact is that we made an effort to do so.

While the cancellation of the ceremony was certainly a disappointment to me, I feel that it may not necessarily be a bad thing. Firstly, this decision to cancel the ceremony was made to prevent the further spread of coronavirus which is now affecting every other country in the world.

In order to stop the spread, large scale events like graduation ceremony which holds thousands of students in one place may easily cause a large number of cases to flare up.

Secondly, in order to still celebrate the past 3 years in school, students have come up with interesting and innovative ways of graduating in the comfort of their homes. This included using phone filters of graduation gowns worn by the students and school backgrounds for pictures. In my opinion, this way of celebrating is something we can look back on.

Instead of the usual graduation ceremonies, we will be able to tell other people that 'hey, my graduation ceremony was done in this way!'. It's something unique and different from everyone else.

That aside, I am truly grateful for the friends I have made along the way, and only with their help and them staying by my side I was able to come this far. I love them and hope to continue being their friend for as long as possible. A shoutout to Huixuan, Michelle, Yufeng, Jana, Liying, Bryan and Shariffa for making my poly life enjoyable :)