New Generation of Grads Ditching Tradition

The annual Spring Grad Fair sponsored by the Colorado State University Bookstore held Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 provides a comprehensive guide to the traditions of graduating, but increasingly, graduates choose to avoid these collegiate traditions all together.

The row of booths in the corner of the lower level of the bookstore provide information about cap and gown, class rings, announcements, and Alumni Association and Career Center services to guide graduates in their post-college job search.

Representatives from Herff Jones and Jostens wait patiently at their tables for questions from graduating seniors

While all of this information in one place is helpful to those graduates who want to follow the traditions of graduating, many students have no interest in a “traditional” departure from their college career.

Students are bypassing sitting with their peers waiting for their moment to walk across the stage in a cap and gown to receive their diploma. 

Kate Merkin looks at the cap and gown display

"Instead of sitting in a room full of other people at the traditional type of graduation, I‘d much rather have a more personal celebration with the people I care about that know how hard I have had to work to get to where I am at, and where I’m going," Leah Rosen, graduating history major, said.

The Grad Fair doesn’t cost the Bookstore anything according to Alyssa Montoya, employee of Bookstore Marketing. About 1,000 students attended the fair this semester.

Senior history major, Thomas Mahoney, was one of the thousand in attendance and plans to walk in his graduation. "I will walk, mostly because my parents need pictures for some photo album," Mahoney said. "But this is only going to happen once and graduating means a new part of my life, one filled with new opportunities and maybe a job."

Michael Shimek at the CB Graduation Announcement table

Kate Merkin, a senior journalism and technical communications major, holds the same sentiment, only wanting to go thorough the motions of graduation for her parents. With plans to go to law school, Merkin doesn’t see her graduation from CSU as significant, just expensive.

One of the goals of the grad fair is to inform students about how to make their commencement a special memory for their families and themselves.

Sales representative for CB Graduation Announcements, Michael Shimek, said graduates might not realize the tradition of it. "There are those who as a grad student they regret not walking as an undergrad," Shimek said. "They see it more as an inconvenience than commemorating their accomplishment."

Dan Moffitt hands out cap and gown information