For most of UConn’s Class of 2024, high school graduation included caps and gowns, some kind of ceremony, and a diploma – but that’s where the similarities to a traditional graduation ceremony ended.
Because graduation in 2020, in the midst of the early pandemic, was anything but traditional.
Aamna Chaudury ’24 (BUS), a marketing major at UConn, remembers sitting in a car in a large parking lot for her graduation from Pomperaug High School in Southbury.
“They had a stage set up in the parking lot, but you pretty much only went up there to get your diploma,” she says. “They had a big presentation set up on the stage with a projector, and they had the slide shows that they had already planned to do. They had all of that going, and then you were just sitting in your car for most of the time – even during the commencement speech, you’re sitting in your car.”
When Rachel Arreguin ’24 (CAHNR/CLAS) graduated from Mercy High School in Middletown, she didn’t even get to walk across a stage.
“I had a cap and gown that was sent through the mail, but it was a drive-by graduation,” says Arreguin, who studied animal science and Spanish at UConn. “I was handed my diploma through the window of the car, and that was it.”
There wasn’t a big graduation speaker when she graduated, says Lucy Cappadona ’24 (BUS), a finance major from Marlborough, Massachusetts – the school superintendent addressed the class.
“You would walk across this fake stage kind of thing, and then you would take a picture and walk off,” she says. “It was awkward.”
There were no proms or senior skip days, no senior outings, no smiling selfies with friends before the ceremony, and no graduation night parties.
“All of those things got canceled for us,” says Chaudury, “so it’s exciting to finally have that and to actually hang out with my friends at graduation.”
This time around, the class that found the spring of their senior year canceled will get that real commencement experience as UConn prepares to award degrees to 2,060 graduate students and 5,815 undergraduate students this May.
This year’s graduating class includes 33 sets of twins – the oldest member of the class is 77, and the youngest is 18.
Eighty-six graduates are U.S. military veterans, and 1,454 are the first in their families to graduate from college.
The farthest distance a student traveled from home internationally to study in Storrs was from Malaysia – 9,280 miles away – and 806 members of the class took part in Education Abroad, lest anyone doubt the University’s broad global reach.
The Class of 2024 also includes 13 University Scholars, 14 McNair Scholars, and 45 Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Scholars. An incredible 492 graduating students are members of the Honors Program.
For the class where everything was canceled, they’re hoping for a different experience this time around – a chance to make memories with family and friends and to experience the pomp and circumstance that they were denied four years ago as the world grappled with COVID-19.
“I just hope it feels special and memorable to walk across the stage, have people clap, make my family proud,” says Arreguin. “Especially being a minority, my parents didn’t have this opportunity, so I just hope to get that out of it. Just a normal graduation.”
“I think right now, honestly, a lot of it doesn’t feel real. It hasn’t really sunk in,” says Chaudury. “But, it’ll definitely be exciting to be able to celebrate with everyone. Because, last time, even my cousins or family members who would come for my graduation, they couldn’t come.
“It’ll be nice to finally be able to celebrate with everyone I love.”
