After all my thesis troubles earlier this year, I did end up graduating and this past Saturday was my Convocation ceremony. I remember my undergrad convocation as being long and boring, this was said to have been fixed in recent years though with only ECE and SYDE sharing a ceremony. Unfortunately for me, now that I wasn’t an undergrad, I had to wait for all the undergrads to finish before it was my turn — still potentially a long wait.

We arrived early, about 12:30 and I paid the $25 to rent my robe. We took some pictures outside while the last group of graduates from the morning session were dispersing. I ran into David Li and Phillip Woo while there too. Around 1:30, I went in to start lining up. It was a long boring wait, but eventually we began our walk into the gym. I actually had a good seat, 4th row and right on the edge (more leg room, and Pauline could come to visit & take pictures).

The ceremony itself wasn’t too long; it only lasted 2 hours. It seemed long while I was waiting though; I didn’t pay attention to the obligatory speeches and procedures (grad students are more cynical) nor did I know many of the undergrads. When it came my turn, I ended up in front of David Johnston (UW President) again. Tsu and I were also discussing whether our hood was different than the undergrads. It looked kind of similar, but on closer inspection there were two key differences. First, the Masters’ hoods were more stylish being dark black with red and white highlights compared to the red and black undergrad ones. Secondly, there was an elastic to hold our hoods in place so they don’t go all out of shape and position as can be seen in most undergrad pictures. Worth it for the money we pay? yes!

Speaking of bonuses, this was UW’s 50^th anniversary. They had special 50^th anniversary degree frames but I decided to just use my old one. What everyone did get was a free hardcover book celebrating Waterloo’s 50 years as well as a commemorative pin. It’s good to be a 2007 grad. After the ceremony, I somehow managed to beat the crowd over to the SLC for the reception. I met Alex there, who while graduated, decided not to participate in the ceremony. All the big wigs were also there, and I was able to get a picture with Sedra and Lazaridus before they were swarmed/left. After a couple more pictures with various people (I didn’t know a lot of people in my graduating year, in fact there were only like 30 or so Masters graduates), I was finally done; with Convocation and Waterloo!

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: uwaterloo.ca