Everyone is always so excited to graduate, but has anyone ever thought about the meaning behind graduation, or why we have graduation, or where it came from? Graduation can mean a lot of things for everyone, anywhere in this world. In my opinion there was a time I wondered why we even had graduation. Why not just end school and then boom you’re all done. But then of course throughout my years of getting older and reaching high school I saw that I did a lot in my 12 years of school, especially high school, and I do not want my work to go unrecognized, along with that of other students.
Graduation traditions come from customs established in the European Universities in the middle ages. Meaning that only during the Mid ages did they start to do graduations or anything before that they just ended school and never had any kind of ceremony, unless you do something small with family members around you. Graduation symbolizes you taking a step forward in life. Back then they would call it the next step into your future because of you graduating high school. It was a big thing back then and is still a big thing now because graduation is basically saying you’re in college now.
Some traditions that we see today were started a long time ago. For example some people ask why we have a tassel on our caps. And why do we move it from right to left after we receive our diploma. Well, a tassel represents you getting your diploma in a way, like a receipt. A tassel is moved from the right to left, basically saying you have finished your high school education. It’s also saying how you have graduated from one level of education and you are now an undergraduate in college. Not many people knew this but when graduation first started it wasn’t with any cap or gowns but only with the clothes you had on your back and you would only receive a piece of paper. Throughout time, graduation became more of a black tie thing and more fancy. They started dressing in gowns and girls were required to wear white underneath as a type of “uniform.” Only until around 50 years ago they started not minding what people would wear to graduation because the gown would cover the whole outfit.
Before we even started calling graduation, “Graduation,” it was called Convocation Ceremony. Realizing that the name was too long they came up with calling it Graduation. Grad meaning succeeding from one level to the next level. So we didn’t always have the name graduation. And even today there are some places in the world who still call it Convocation Ceremony, because they believe that the tradition was put there for a reason. No matter what the reason or law is there are still beliefs in keeping this tradition of Convocation Ceremony. We nowadays have different color gowns not only because of the school and their school color, but because each gown with color has a different type of meaning behind it. Back then they had specific color gown for high school and college and the different types of subjects each person was graduating from like your masters or associates degree. All colors were different.
In conclusion, there were and are many different traditions for graduation. Whatever you call it or however you celebrate it, it wasn’t always the way it is. Of course people have their opinions about how graduation is ran or why we wear this and that, but at least nowadays we don’t have to wear anything specific like a uniform or something that is ugly. We choose now and we make our own traditions to also add onto others from the mid ages.