Graduation is a huge accomplishment in this part of our lives. It is the first big step that leads us out into the real world. However, I feel as though a lot of people have been forgetting the intrinsic value of the actual graduation. 

Instead, students have been more focused on where graduation is being held or when it takes place than on what is arguably the most important: the actual ceremony itself. 

Instead, students seem to be eternally pessimistic – fixating on the negatives surrounding what time graduation is, such as having to get up early to get ready, and that there would be no appointment times that early in the morning for hair or makeup. Having curled hair by professionals or the perfect winged eyeliner in photos are little details that we will not remember when we look back at our graduation ten years from now. What we will remember, however,  is being surrounded by our fellow classmates, wearing smiles, not makeup. The atmosphere of the room when we graduate will be so full of nerves and excitement that most people will forget about how they look and instead would rather focus on the moment because we only graduate high school once.

No one seems to notice the advantages of having an 11 a.m. graduation. To begin with, we get graduation over with early. We can get the ceremony out of the way early in the morning rather than having to wait for it all day with our nerves and excitement rampant.

Personally, I always get nervous before big events – especially the day of. Getting graduation out of the way early will help prevent a lot of anxiety. This also allows families to attend graduation early as well, and instead of trying to rush to make it to work after the ceremony or leave work early, they can take the day off and spend it with us. 

Although many parents do work 9-5 jobs, our graduation would be a way that allows them to take the day off from work and take a break. We know the time and day of graduation way in advance, meaning this will give them the opportunity to try and schedule the day off six months in advance. Of course, there may be some who may not be able to make it, but that happens with every graduation – you cannot always satisfy everyone.

If we had graduation at 7 p.m. then it wouldn’t end until 8:00 p.m. or 8:30p.m. While teenagers may not be tired, our families certainly will be (especially after a long day of work). They won’t have much energy to spend time with us to celebrate afterward. Having graduation at 11 a.m. allows us to not only complete the ceremony early, but gives us plenty of time to spend the day with our friends and family. Some of whom may have traveled from out of town and even out of state to see us graduate. 

We also are the first to graduate on Friday, meaning that we don’t have to deal with other cars leftover from another school’s graduation,  instead, we will be greeted with an empty parking lot to fill. Getting ready may take more of an effort because we have to drag ourselves out of bed early in the morning, but we’ve been doing it for four years now. Another day – especially one as important as this –  is not going to kill us. We will also be able to go back to the school campus and take our last photos there while there’s still daylight.

We should finish with the people we started with. People with a more optimistic mindset about graduation and the graduation time will be excited about it no matter the time, nor the place. Nothing lasts forever, and when one tradition comes to an end, another one begins. The least we can say is that we were the first class to experience it.