UMW Students Unprepared For May Graduation

By CHESTER EICHENBRENNER

I asked UMW’s graduating seniors three questions: what have you done to prepare for graduation? Have you utilized any of UMW’s facilities to prepare for graduation? Do you feel UMW is a good school to prepare you for graduation? The overwhelming responses indicated that most students have not done much preparation and have minimally utilized the facilities. So, UMW has all the facilities to prepare us for graduation, but it seems that seniors are not using them.

UMW provides the graduating seniors with career services, graduate school advertisements, job fairs and departmental recommendations. However, most seniors are taking a procrastination approach to graduation.

When asked what he had done to prepare for graduation, Stephen James said “Nothing, just filled out the card to say that I am graduating this fall.” His friend, Erik Burnham said, “Next to nothing, getting lined up to graduate this May and getting all my classes was a real pain.”

The majority responded similarly, as if a laissez-faire approach to graduation is best. Very few exceptions spoke up and said they actually had prepared for graduation.
Joel Carrillo, said he already had a tentative position with border control and was writing a book. However, when asked if he had used career services he responded, “No, I have not.”

Graduation also seems to be just filling out a couple additional forms for academic services. Most seniors have not used career services, and those seniors who had used career services are still not in all the way into a job hunt. I feel I should have asked a fourth question: are you worried about graduation?

Instead, I answered that question myself. There is no reason to be worried about graduation. Graduation is forward progress whether or not you are preparing for it in the final semester. I have not done much to prepare for graduation, and I still feel secure that graduating from UMW will land me a job opportunity.

As other seniors agreed, UMW has the facilities to prepare us for graduation. Be confident that you can use these facilities all the way through the end of this semester. If these facilities are never used, feel confident that there are plenty more facilities in the real world. Be confident that you are graduating from a renowned school and will be successful.

After graduation, seniors will have plenty of time to do what they want to do. All the seniors should embrace this confidence with me as we walk into our futures on May 12.