DID ANY other fourth-years feel a bit uncomfortable waiting in line last week to pick up a cap and gown? Slowly making my way toward the front of the line was like swimming through a sea of swarming sharks, each one in possession of a sales pitch and in search of a sucker. “Want a frame for that degree?” “How about a $3,000 watch for that wrist there?” It’s as if graduation has turned into a series of thirty-second infomercials, each designed to get you wastefully spending the money you should be using to plan for your post-graduate future.
Graduation is a rite of passage, a joyful occasion that marks the moment at which we begin to transition out of our four-year collegiate bubble and transition into the unknown that lies beyond. Everything about the event screams of ceremony and pomp. We don our flowing gowns and dangle our tassels as we anxiously await the moment when we can finally clutch our degree, at last possessing the physical proof that we have succeeded.
Yet this year’s massive sales campaign targeting nostalgic almost-graduates who are quick to swear their undying allegiance to their soon-to-be alma mater is evidence that perhaps the coveted degree has been replaced by an expensive gold class ring and a $400 dollar giant frame.
There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to purchase something to commemorate four years spent at a prestigious institution cramming for exams, hanging out with your friends, and participating in age-old University traditions. However, something is clearly wrong when graduation is dominated by a rabid consumerism and commercialism that subsume the true meaning of the event itself. Buying a $30 Jefferson Cup and a $3,000 watch has become the new way of celebrating the past four years of your life.
Cap and Gown Week featured an array of opportunities, most of which involved forking over hundreds of dollars in return for a memento to, in the words of the Fourth Year Trustees, “express your school spirit.” The long line at the bookstore appeared strategically designed to expose students to everything from rings to frames to graduation announcements before actually allowing them to pick up their (free) caps and gowns. It was more like a casino set up to trap people in and much less like a streamlined queue to allow people to get in and out between classes.
Attempting to navigate my way through the advertisements for useless material goods in the e-mail that Fourth Year Trustees sent graduating students, I followed a link to the Class Watch website out of curiosity. While there, I came across this statement: “Commemoration and school pride can now be celebrated in a practical, meaningful, and fashionable way.”
In what way is buying a watch with “UVA” pasted on its face a “meaningful” or even “fashionable” activity? Is it supposed to match the $500 class ring that we were all supposed to buy last year? Should I wear it to my first job interview in hopes that it might get me an ‘in’ with some random alumnus?
Rather than a practical means of celebrating graduation, this all seems like a contest to see how much University bling a person can buy before May arrives and time is up. Furthermore, this is all going on amidst a class giving campaign in which fourth years are being asked to donate money to the things that really did matter to them during their four years here. When class watches and class giving appear alongside each other, the idea and act of giving money to the University is cheapened. A watch seems as important as a contribution to a CIO.
It is time to rethink graduation and to reconsider what it means to celebrate such an event. Our generation is all about personalization, conforming to trends, and buying things. Companies like Class Watch, Jostens, and even the University Bookstore know this. Moreover, they exploit this: Why buy a standard diploma frame when you can have your very own suede-matted mahogany frame with a gold medallion at the top? Why not even go ahead and have your name etched in silver on the bottom?
Graduating from college is an achievement, and remembering the time you spent there is important. But an expensive watch and a dozen shiny Jefferson Cups can’t stand in for that hard-earned diploma, the hundreds of pictures you took over the years, the twenty-page papers you agonized over for weeks, and those priceless moments you spent with some of the best friends you will ever have.
Buying things does nothing to help hold onto these intangibles. Do you really need a ring on your finger in order to remember your time at the University?
$3,000 may get you a pretty nice watch, and wearing a gold ring with a picture of the Rotunda on it may make you feel pretty special, but in the end, wearing these things only means you had enough money to buy them. Earning your diploma, on the other hand, should mean a whole lot more.
Amelia Meyer’s column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at a.meyer@cavalierdaily.com.
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