The promise of an in-person commencement ceremony after the COVID-19 pandemic closed campus and moved classes online was meant to bring joy and hope to students. It seems to be causing anxiety, confusion and frustration instead.
President Carol Folt announced on March 19 that USC will host in-person commencement ceremonies for the classes of 2020 and 2021 both in an email to students and on the USC Instagram account. Smaller ceremonies for different schools will take place between May 14 and May 25 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For those who cannot attend in person, all events will be broadcast live and available for future viewing on a “new digital platform to host a memorable, feature-rich remote experience with the objective of delivering an unforgettable experience for everyone.” All schools will have a virtual celebration on May 13.
As of publishing, only California residents will be able to attend the in-person ceremonies, but the university wrote in the email they are “actively working with state officials to see if there is any avenue to allow out-of-state residents to attend the ceremonies.” They also commented on their Instagram post that this was not the university’s decision, but the county’s.
One student, who asked to remain anonymous due to privacy concerns, was so disappointed they told Annenberg Media they would try to sneak into the ceremony.
“I didn’t pay a quarter of a million dollars for my family not to see me graduate,” the student said. They and their family are vaccinated and also feel state restrictions will ease by the time the ceremonies are planned.
Annenberg Media reached out to USC for further information and clarification on commencement plans and logistics, but were told Folt’s email and the online FAQ contain “all the details we have at this time.”
“It just seemed very short-sighted,” said Ellen Murray, a class of 2020 graduate. “Maybe it’s not — maybe they put so much planning into it and they advocated the best they could for students out of state, but in that case, share that with us.”
Last April, the university emailed the class of 2020 a survey (which is still live), about their preferences for the 2020 virtual ceremony and if students would return to a rescheduled graduation in fall of 2020 or spring of 2021. Annenberg Media reached out to the university for the results of this survey, but received no response as of publishing.
Murray mentioned this survey and was surprised that there was no further student input regarding the plans, especially as the pandemic persists and university operations remain primarily online until fall 2021.
“It’s kind of bittersweet from an international perspective,” class of 2021 graduate Amy Sotnick said. “Obviously, I’m really happy that it’s in person, but they also announced that only people from California can come. So I don’t know if my parents will even be able to make it right now because the borders in England shut.”
According to the CDC, the United States is still prohibiting travelers from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, China, Iran, Brazil, South Africa and the entire European Schengen area that consists of 28 countries.
Other countries, like Mexico, have no current travel bans into the United States.
“I feel like my parents would want to come whether or not they can attend the in-person graduation,” said Claudia Herrera, a class of 2021 graduate from Monterrey, Mexico currently residing in Los Angeles. “They want to be close to campus during my online graduation and have dinner with me in L.A...So I don’t think that [commencement restrictions] necessarily will limit the traveling because I have a lot of international friends whose parents are still planning on coming, whether or not they can attend in-person commencement.”
Gabrielle Robinson is a 2020 graduate and current graduate student in the Iovine and Young Academy. She is chronically ill and moved back home to New York during the pandemic, where she has remained since.
“I don’t think I’ll be going because of the trip out to Los Angeles,” she said. “That’s probably the scarier part to me, getting on a plane.”
“I understand why they’re not wanting people to travel from other states to fly in,” class of 2020 graduate Katie Newsom said. “But also realistically, people are going to fly in from Northern California, so what’s the point?”
Newsom returned home to Texas last spring and she and her family are currently vaccinated. If not for the pandemic, she would still be living in California and able to attend. She hopes that the out-of-state restrictions change, but also feels there is not enough notice for out-of-state students to realistically make plans.
“USC was my dream school,” she said. “I applied in high school and didn’t get in and then did a year of community college and fought really hard to get in and was just so proud to be there. To not even get to celebrate that is weird.”
Class of 2020 graduate Shelby Durkin and her mother currently live in Los Angeles, so she is excited to attend the in-person celebrations. “Going to USC was a big deal for me because no one from my hometown went there, my mom’s a single mom, there’s a lot of factors outside of my own personal achievement that are really important to me,” she said. “The sentimental value of my mom getting to see me walk is something that is really important to me.”
“I belittled the importance of graduation to try to tell myself to not be sad because of the pandemic,” said Ruby Yuan, the former executive editor of Annenberg Media and a class of 2020 graduate from Wuhan, China. Both he and his parents felt that there were “more important things going on in the world” than a graduation ceremony in 2020.
But when he received the email about the in-person ceremony, it made him feel like the school “didn’t forget” him.
While his parents cannot attend the in-person commencement due to travel restrictions, Yuan is happy to have an in-person ceremony at all. He realized that undergraduate graduation is “an important mark, an important journey in his life,” and understands that there still are still restrictions in place.
The timing is also favorable for Yuan — by mid-June he will leave Los Angeles to attend graduate school in either New York City or Chicago.
“This graduation is actually the perfect ending to my time in L.A.,” he said.
The sentimental value of graduation appeals to Thomas Kim, the class of 2020 salutatorian and a class of 2021 graduate student, but the logistics leave him conflicted.
“I was in the marching band for four years, so to be able to have a chance to graduate and walk in the Coliseum, would be absolutely amazing,” Kim said. “But thinking about it, it just makes less and less sense.”
He added that attendees are not just coming to the Coliseum — they’re coming to Los Angeles and the surrounding community.
“I doubt that everyone will be vaccinated by May for this to happen in good conscience, even following all of the guidelines,” Kim said.
He also worries about the way attendees will act and if they will celebrate responsibly. This concern is shared by 2020 graduate Marty Cooper.
“Maybe if we do a small [ceremony] it will stay small, but someone should send Carol [Folt] down Menlo on a Friday night and be like, ‘You wanna go party with them?’” they said.
Cooper is immunocompromised and concerned about the current lack of details the university has provided about mask requirements, testing and vaccinations.
“I appreciate that they are trying to make up for lost time, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” they said.
After a year marred by loss, some students have simply moved on.
“It’s not worth the logistical hassle it’s inevitably going to be,” said class of 2020 graduate Kylie Harrington. “[Or] the dystopian sad weirdness it’s going to end up being.”
Harrington feels there is a loss of the tangential rituals and celebrations that the traditional commencement ceremony cannot replace. She, along with Yuan, Newsom, Cooper and Murray, expressed a wish for final conversations with professors.
“All of us have had our bright-eyed nature you’re supposed to have at the end of college thoroughly yanked away,” she said. “It’s going to be hard to accept a lot of the sentiments that tend to be said during graduations because they feel so patently untrue.”
Cooper still feels like they “haven’t yet graduated,” sometimes feeling as though they will return to school after a long vacation. “I would appreciate that moment of closure, but that’s really performative and not something I absolutely need from USC,” they said.
“I’ve had one Zoom graduation. Another one won’t be the end of the world,” Kim said. He hopes this time around, however, that schools read out the names of graduating students, since some did not do so last May.
The frustrations of COVID-19 restrictions are not new to international students like Sotnick and Yuan. “I really am very neutral about the whole thing because we’ve had so many ups and downs that I’m just kind of numb to all of it now,” Sotnick said.
For some, the inability for many students to attend graduation in-person brings into question what The Spirit of Troy looks like once students leave.
“I just think for a school that emphasizes so much of the Trojan family and having such a strong network, USC really doesn’t follow through on that, especially after graduation,” Murray said.
Despite Durkin’s excitement to attend commencement ceremonies, it isn’t lost on her that she is “in this very specific group that all the decisions are positively impacting.” She wished that the university would wait a few months for more out-of-state and international students to attend.
“Ideally, I would wait,” Robinson said. “I only exclusively want to go to things when it’s safe for everyone, disabled people, immunocompromised people, when everyone is vaccinated. That is when I would be willing to go to graduation.”
Updated on March 25, 2021 at 3:30 p.m. with Kylie Harrington’s preferred name.