Graduation

Graduation at an art college is much like graduation anywhere else.  You sit and listen to speeches, go up and get your diploma... or rather the leather binding your diploma will eventually be in, shake a couple hands, throw your hats, and eat food.  Sounds pretty normal right.  Only it's not completely normal.  Art colleges can have some unique quirks in their ceremonies that you often don't find anywhere else.

Firstly, there is no real dress code.  I've been to graduations from two separate art colleges and the students and professors alike ended up wearing some pretty bazar clothing at points.  I recall very vividly a school dean with a plumed top hat and a student wearing roller blades at one of the graduations.

Secondly, the speeches can be anything from normal to activist.  Artists professors have been known to make shameless plugs about their own artwork or an upcoming show in the middle of a graduation speech.  And the valedictorian is either motivational or downright activist.  The head of our class gave a very memorable speech about civil rights and getting along as a community.  Although starting a graduation speech with a movement that has long since outlived its purpose was perhaps more popular with the parents than it was with the students, no one felt it was too terribly out of place.

But by far the most different thing about a graduation at an art school is the exhibition.  Every year, art colleges will have an exhibition of the student art work that they will show to the parents.  This can either include the BFA students or the MFA students, but whomever gets the honor of showing off their work at graduation, the fact remains that there's always a show to see.

So, in the end, after all is said and done, you have a graduated art class.  Now if only finding jobs were as easy.