By ALI LEDING, Staff Writer
Eastern Oklahoma State College has been accepting and teaching students for years. Each year, a couple of hundred students graduate from Eastern with their associate’s degree. With that being said, let us talk about graduation.
Every year the college has a commencement ceremony to honor the students for their hard work and determination. But the last year has been totally different because of the ongoing pandemic that we call COVID-19. The graduates of 2020 did not get to have the ceremony due to the pandemic getting as bad as it did that time. Well, here it is 2021, a year later and graduation protocols have changed slightly. Different from last year’s graduates, this year graduates actually get a graduation ceremony. Yeah, it sounds great and it is, well for the most part, but here is where the irritation lies.
Only four tickets are available to each student walking in the ceremony. Sure, sounds great, but what about the students having to break it to their older grandparents, a cousin, or sibling who would have given anything to watch their most loved walk, but then giving the heart-breaking news that we had to choose only four people to come? That is tough, but a thought that hurts even more is knowing for a year and a half your family has had to miss everything you do.
So why when our mask mandate is up and done with in over half of the area, do we have to still abide by the rule at school? Especially on such a big day, a day that people thought the person would never make it to. The day that you really needed as many of your family members there because it meant the world. Everything has been pried out of everyone hands because of this pandemic, so what is a couple more tickets for graduation going to hurt? Nothing. So, yeah, there is the issue, the irritation, the heartache, that the 2021 graduation ceremony brings.
