Better options available

Every year, seniors debate whether or not they want to pay the hefty price of $100 to attend Sober Grad Night after graduation. While the premise of Sober Grad – saying one last goodbye to all of your classmates before you inevitably go your separate ways – is great, the price may not be worth it, especially given that most people you care about seeing you will surely see over the course of the summer.

I actually don’t think the price for Sober Grad is that bad; I just think it’s going towards the wrong thing. The idea of driving to San Francisco directly after graduation is not only tiresome, but also makes it impossible for students to spend time with their families. I, for one, have family members from Alaska and Tennessee coming to town, and basically the only time I am going to get to see them is at the actual graduation. While the simple solution would just be for me to not attend Sober Grad Night, it is something I am looking forward to, as I want to say goodbye to some of classmates.

I am not sure what the solution is. Other schools such as Woodcreek do trips to Disneyland, but that seems a bit extreme. What if the school continued the tradition of going to San Francisco, but instead of doing it right after the ceremony we did it the next morning? Leave at 10 a.m. and spend the whole day in the city?

Not only does it give kids more time to spend with their friends and classmates they have know for at least four years, but it also gives students more time to spend with their families. Also, a whole day in San Francisco would make sure that nobody falls asleep and misses out on the fun.

While I obviously have never experienced Sober Grad Night, I have heard that some people fall asleep on the bus and miss out on all the fun despite paying $100. If the events of Sober Grad were actually to take place on June 2, nobody would fall asleep. Besides that, while a lot of people get to go to San Francisco frequently, we should not take that trip for granted, as not everybody has been there, and going for the entire day gives people more time to take in the city, and makes the price of the trip even more reasonable.

Don’t knock it till you try it

As graduation nears, people tend to bring up activities such as Sober Grad Night in their conversations with friends. And as such, there are rumblings of people who are choosing not to go because it is “boring” or not worth it.

But, to the people that call it boring: How do you know that it’s going to be boring?

You have never experienced Sober Grad Night because you haven’t graduated before. You may have talked to other students from previous classes who told you that it was a boring event but their definition of boring could be extremely different from your definition.

Students label Sober Grad “boring” because they compare it to different trips – like Woodcreek going to Los Angeles and visiting Disneyland – but that also comes with repercussions. That trip costs $275, while ours only costs $100 (if you bought your ticket before April 27).

Along with that they drive eight hours on a bus to spend half a day in Disneyland and come home that same day, leaving them with nothing to run on but the little sleep they managed to catch on the ride there and back.

For our Sober Grad, though, we are paying $100 less and we will be getting back at around five or six a.m.

That gives us the option to go home and sleep until around 12 or one p.m, which would still allow us seven hours of sleep, rather than the alternative of wiping out a whole day due to sheer exhaustion.

And, for our Sober Grad Night, we are going on a boat with a variety of different games to play, such as poker and other gambling games, where we are able to win interesting prizes such as gift cards that could ultimately even out our $100 investment.

The boat travels around the beautiful San Francisco Bay and we get to be on this boat one last time with the 2018 senior class after the four years we’ve spent growing up and forming relationships with these people.

I recommend going on this last school event we can ever participate in and not making assumptions about it beforehand, because we have no idea what could come of it.