By Marcelle Richards
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]
 JONATHAN YOUNG/Daily Bruin
A medical student receives her diploma at this year’s
graduation ceremony. Many employers seek UCLA graduates because of
the institution’s well-established name.
Your rear is starting to hurt because you’ve been sitting
on a plastic fold-up chair for the last hour waiting for your
department to be called.
All you really want is to get your hands on the alcohol bar at
the reception when it’s over.
You look around and think you might have had a lab with the
person several rows up, but you can’t say for sure since
it’s getting harder to tell one back of the head from
another.
“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your
name…”
You hear the “Cheers” theme song in your head. You
hate it when that happens.
Maybe you should have gone to a smaller ceremony.
Many find a personalized goodbye through ethnic, sexuality and
department-based celebrations.
Will Fiske, graduating through the Graduate School of Education
and Information Studies, said the options “support the
diversity of interests.”
This weekend, many students who have found their niche through
student groups will walk at African Grad, Asian Pacific Islander
Grad and Lavender Grad, to name a few.
“It promotes community,” said Elizabeth Jacobo, a
fourth-year history student who will take part in Raza Grad.
“It makes me take pride in my roots.”
Some aren’t even digging for their roots ““ they just
want to look over at a face they recognize.
Samahang Pilipino member Sonny Ganaden, a fourth-year sociology
student, is attending “P-Grad” because his friends will
also be attending.
“It’s not so much about a cultural thing, or
“˜I’m going to separate myself from the rest of
UCLA,'” he said. “It’s because my friends
are in it, and that’s what I’m going to
remember.”
For those more academically grounded in their circle of friends,
department ceremonies serve the same purpose of making a big place
like UCLA seem smaller.
“I think the Letters & Science (ceremony) is really
impersonal,” said fourth-year psychology student Megan
Michaels. “Just standing up when they call your department,
you just feel like a number.”
Since the campus is already sectioned off by school, departments
and North and South Campus, it only makes sense that graduation
would be the same, said Joe Meza, a fourth-year mathematics
student.
Visit www.commencement.ucla.edu for ceremony information.