I think we can all agree that COVID-19 has changed a lot of things. Am I right? Even though this may be fact, one thing you can’t let it take hold of is your dreams and wants of celebrating your Graduation Day. 

 

When I was a student, I can undoubtedly agree with 99% of the student population, that graduation was the final piece in the puzzle to my University experience.

 

It is one of the most important times throughout the whole of your academic journey where you really get celebrated for what you have achieved. After hundreds of hours in the library, late night cramming sessions and spontaneous meltdowns in public places, where you say to yourself “I just can’t do it” when really you know you’re there till the end, you want the closure of knowing YOU DID IT! 

 

Just because graduations can’t go ahead this year, doesn’t mean you can’t wear a heavy cloak and felt hat and walk around with a piece of paper in your hand all day. Nor does it mean you can’t celebrate and be celebrated by your family and with you friends in some way. You still have the abundance of time and space to embrace the time that you have now and mark the occasion creatively! You want to be able to look back on 2020 as a year when great memories were made, even in the midst of lockdown. Marking and celebrating your end at University will give you closure on the past 3 or 4 years, which is an important part of finishing well.

 

Here a are just a few ideas of what you could do on your graduation day:

1. Get all dressed up in your grad gear, grab a glass of bubbly and have that graduation dinner with your family to mark the day
2. Do the same thing, followed by a mass zoom with all your fellow graduates and celebrate each other! 
3. Make some origami graduation hats - here’s how!
4. Ask your church to have an evening of commissioning all your fellow students off into the world 
5. Have a make your own cocktail night for a girls/guys night

 

Regardless of how you choose to celebrate, take in the knowledge that God is proud of you regardless of your failures and your successes.

 

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

(Ephesians 2:10)