![\"Countdown](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DEP-018-UComm-Commencement-Graphic-FY22_bookish-300x76.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFor most of UConn\u2019s Class of 2024, high school graduation included caps and gowns, some kind of ceremony, and a diploma \u2013 but that\u2019s where the similarities to a traditional graduation ceremony ended.<\/p>\n
Because graduation in 2020, in the midst of the early pandemic, was anything but traditional.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aamna Chaudury \u201924 (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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had a stage set up in the parking lot, but you pretty much only went up there to get your diploma,\u201d she says. \u201cThey 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 \u2013 even during the commencement speech, you\u2019re sitting in your car.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Rachel Arreguin \u201924 (CAHNR\/CLAS) graduated from Mercy High School in Middletown, she didn\u2019t even get to walk across a stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a cap and gown that was sent through the mail, but it was a drive-by graduation,\u201d says Arreguin, who studied animal science and Spanish at UConn. \u201cI was handed my diploma through the window of the car, and that was it.\u201d<\/p>\n
There wasn\u2019t a big graduation speaker when she graduated, says Lucy Cappadona \u201924 (BUS), a finance major from Marlborough, Massachusetts \u2013 the school superintendent addressed the class.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou would walk across this fake stage kind of thing, and then you would take a picture and walk off,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were no proms or senior skip days, no senior outings, no smiling selfies with friends before the ceremony, and no graduation night parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those things got canceled for us,\u201d says Chaudury, \u201cso it\u2019s exciting to finally have that and to actually hang out with my friends at graduation.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s graduating class includes 33 sets of twins \u2013 the oldest member of the class is 77, and the youngest is 18.<\/p>\n
Eighty-six graduates are U.S. military veterans, and 1,454 are the first in their families to graduate from college.<\/p>\n
The farthest distance a student traveled from home internationally to study in Storrs was from Malaysia \u2013 9,280 miles away \u2013 and 806 members of the class took part in Education Abroad, lest anyone doubt the University\u2019s broad global reach.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
For the class where everything was canceled, they\u2019re hoping for a different experience this time around \u2013 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just hope it feels special and memorable to walk across the stage, have people clap, make my family proud,\u201d says Arreguin. \u201cEspecially being a minority, my parents didn\u2019t have this opportunity, so I just hope to get that out of it. Just a normal graduation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think right now, honestly, a lot of it doesn\u2019t feel real. It hasn\u2019t really sunk in,\u201d says Chaudury. \u201cBut, it\u2019ll 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\u2019t come.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be nice to finally be able to celebrate with everyone I love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A look at the newest group of Husky alums by the numbers <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":213241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2224,2229,2459,99,2235,2227,2458,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-212978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cahnr","category-commencement","category-graduate-students","category-student-life","category-today-homepage","category-uconn-edu-homepage","category-undergraduates","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 00:00:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212978"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213407,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212978\/revisions\/213407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/213241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212978"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=212978"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=212978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}