Several University of Minnesota 2024 graduates are facing their first in-person graduation after experiencing limited high school graduations during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. 

Amid feelings of excitement and bittersweetness, students reflected on what is still needed to prepare for May’s graduation. 

The undergraduate graduation ceremonies will happen in the 3M Arena at Mariucci, with varying times and dates depending on the college. 

This is different compared to last year’s graduation, which was a joint ceremony of combined colleges held at Huntington Bank Stadium due to renovations at Mariucci. 

Ian McPhee, a fourth-year civil engineering student, said his high school did not have a graduation ceremony, so he was excited to have a big ceremony like the one last year. 

“The ceremony that CSE is going to provide is not quite what I was looking for,” McPhee said. “I was looking forward to having everybody from the whole class in Huntington and there would be way too many people there, and it would be like a big celebration for everybody in the University, not just engineering kids.” 

McPhee said the ideal graduation would have a cool speaker, something he said might not happen if the University is trying to find speakers for every college. 

“I think it’s worth asking the question, we have a football stadium, why are we not using it to have a big graduation ceremony?” McPhee said. 

Despite wishing for a bigger ceremony, McPhee said he is excited about his department’s graduation as it will be a more intimate ceremony experience where he can say thank you to his professors. 

Kiera Sweeney, a fourth-year psychology student, said she went to a big high school, so her school was not able to offer any graduation in 2020. 

Sweeney said the school did a news segment where students could select a picture of themselves which would be shown “for approximately one second” on screen. 

“It wasn’t really like a graduation, it was kind of just a presentation we watched on the news, so that kind of sucked,” Sweeney said. 

With the size of the College of Liberal Arts, Sweeney said they have to split graduation into two parts already, so she does not see how everybody could graduate in Huntington at once. Sweeney added that she always thought the graduations happened at Mariucci, so that is what she was expecting. 

Harrison Sullivan, a fourth-year marketing and computer science student in the Carlson School of Management, said he feels bittersweet about graduating but is excited to have it in person. 

With the pandemic, Sullivan said his freshman year did not feel like college because of all the restrictions, so his time at the University has been cut a year short. 

As for the ceremony, Sullivan said he is indifferent to where or how it happens. He added that it would be fun to have a ceremony all together but feels it would be impossible with so many students. 

“I think I’m fine that it’s all Carlson, but I’m not like, ‘Yes, I just want it to be all Carlson,’” Sullivan said. 

Sullivan added the general sentiment among his friends is not, “Graduation is on this date, at this time, this is exactly what we need to do.” He said he feels there is not a full understanding of what is happening but said he does not know if the knowledge gap is the University’s or his fault. 

McPhee said he started looking for information about graduation a couple of weeks before spring break because he did not know what was happening as nothing was communicated. 

“Nobody else knew,” McPhee said. “I talked with some of my friends, like, ‘Do you guys know what’s going on with graduation?’ ‘No, nobody knows.’”

McPhee added he looks at the emails being sent but many people do not, so if he is not finding information, that means more people are not finding it either. 

Sullivan said he is pretty aware of what is going on but not 100% aware of what is happening. He added he has not received a lot of information but said he probably has it somewhere. 

Sweeney said she feels out of the loop but does not know if it is the University or her. 

“Talking to some of the people I plan to graduate with, I don’t think they really know either, so that makes me think the University is kind of not giving us all the details as early as they could be,” Sweeney said. 

Despite feeling out of the loop, Sweeney said she is excited about the opportunity to put on her cap and gown and feel accomplished. 

“I’m looking forward to actually having a graduation and closure and being able to walk the stage and say I did it,” Sweeney said. 

While Sweeney said she is excited about something she has not done yet, she knows some people who are kind of over it. 

“Some of the people I’ve talked to about it have expressed similar feelings as me, as they’re looking forward to having this experience we never got, and some people are kind of over it, like, ‘I don’t really care, we didn’t get it the first time, I don’t really need it the second time,’” Sweeney said.