So I’ma a high school senior dual a dual enrollment program, and as you read in the title, I really dont want to walk for graduation. Here are my reasons.
I got nothing out of high school. Sure, I got decent grades and a decent SAT score, but other than that I feel like my high school accomplishments were bare and not worthy of any celebration. (and i really mean it... the greatest accomplishment I got at my high school was being the treasurer of a club that my friend started... and the club was on probation for not conducting weekly meetings). I got no awards, no trophies, no nothing, I have 2 or 3 close friends (and thats it), and I haven't been to school for a year... Im doing a dual enrollment program, so I feel awkward going back to school and seeing people I recognize and them staring at me like "where have you been for the past year".
I dont want my parents to see my being all lonely. Like I said before, I have about 2 friends in HS and thats it. Because they were in high school in senior year (they didnt do dual enrollment), they would most likely be hanging out with their own friends. When everyone is taking pictures with their friends after graduation and meeting their friends famalies, I dont want be that kid that doesn't have any friend and just stays with his parents while everyone else is having fun and talking to their friends' families. This is ognna put both me and my parents in an awkward situation.
I dont have the best relationship with the office at my HS. Long story short: when I needed to turn in rec letters for college, my teachers were procrastinating hard (they didnt turn in anything 2 days before the georgia tech deadline), and I asked them if they can write them ASAP (yeah, I know this was wrong, dont comment on this please), and the teachers went and told the office about this and they sent me an email saying I cant be rushing teachers like this and that they were unable to write be a good rec letter. (pretty pathetic).
Basically, I think of high school as the 3 years of the biggest waste of my time and failed to make any decent social connections or do something meaningful. The only problem is my parents are going to be sorely disappointed if I tell them I dont want to go to graduation. They are the type of people that like celebrating EVERY little thing (and thats good, but gets annoying at some points in my life), and I don’t know how to tell them about this. I have a plan, but it might be kinda stupid. Here it is: basically, I am thinking of taking an INSANE dual enrollment schedule for the spring quarter, so I can tell my parents I have no time for graduation (becuase my college ends a week after my HS, and it will be finals week and Ill just tell them I need to study for my finals). My schedule involves calc based physics, multi variable calculus, a computer science class, and some BS humanities class. I knwo this schedule will really kill me as it isnt something my guidance counselor recommends, but if it means I can skip graduation I would to it. Only think that worries me is that I feel like I might have to eventually drop the physics course, and I have yet to meet somebody that passes the class on their first try (it is notoriously hard at the college I am at).
Anyone have any ideas on how I can tell my parents about this? BTW: I havent ordered caps and gowns yet, and the forms were due in December. I have to contact my school office if I want to walk on grad and order caps and gowns, and this is only gonna make my relations worse.
I saw a quote on a social media site today that said
Obviously, people will have different emphasis on different skill sets, but communications – overcoming your petty fears because you don’t have anyone to take pictures with at graduation, for example (forgot about that 2 close friends?) – is a huge part of your life, both at one’s workplace or home.
You don’t want to contact your own alma mater because you don’t want to talk to the front desk secretary? If you do not take the initiative to overcome relationship problems - whatever that means in this case - nothing will get better for sure. Not only will you let your parents, family, and friends down, but you will let yourself down.
This is a celebration of a milestone in your life. Whether you want to forgo it obviously depends on you, but at what cost? I guarantee you one day many years from now, you will look back and utterly regret for not having participated in one of the biggest celebrations in your life.
Okay so high school didn’t turn out to be all that meaningful for you. Suck it up for your parents and attend graduation. It won’t take that much out of your “insane” schedule.
Do it for your parents. They love you and have celebrated every part of your life. They only want the best for you and want to share in your happiness and success. They’ve probably been anticipating this moment for a long time and you’d be dropping the ball on them by saying you don’t want to walk. In life, you have to make sacrifices for the people you love. And this is one of them. Even though you’d be unhappy, it’s just a walk. You’re sitting in a chair with a cap and gown on, walking down the aisle when your name is called, getting your diploma, and walking off the stage to sit down again. Then it’s over.
It was a fleeting moment but it’s a defining moment in your parents’ eyes. You’re growing up. You’re not their little kid anymore, so please, do it for them.
Do your folks care? If you don’t know, ask them. If they do, I think you should suck it up and walk the stage. They will want the photo and maybe to go out to eat and celebrate. It is a milestone in your and their lives. I had one kid graduate already. He did have a little group of friends, and they spent a lot of time together leading up to the event, but were pretty much just with their families at the ceremony itself. Kids rode back and forth to practice with each other for example, stopping to get food, etc. But when the ceremony came, each kid stayed with his family and that little unit went out to eat and celebrate. YMMV.
Way back when I was in high school, it wasn’t unusual for kids to skip graduation. Their parents didn’t care. These days parents seem to care more about seeing it.
I agree, go for your parents and (very importantly) go with a smile on your face. You can leave immediately after the ceremony and go out to celebrate with your family.
If you’re still very insistent on not walking at graduation, then go to your parents and just tell them. No need to sugarcoat or walk around anything - be direct about it. And don’t be surprised if they are extremely upset or refuse - considering how much they’ve supported and loved you throughout your grade-school years, all the way from elementary school to the end of high school.
Don’t be annoyed at your parents for wanting to celebrate you graduating high school. This isn’t you getting an A on a homework assignment - high school graduation is a huge accomplishment and milestone in your life, regardless of what you thought of it.
Consider that even if you take this severe-overkill schedule, this may only hurt you. Not only that, but how do you know that your parents will accept your excuse for not going? If they love celebrating “every little accomplishment” then there’s a chance that they may drag you to the ceremony anyways - even if you need to study.
Graduation isn’t that long. You just walk onto the stage, listen to some speeches, and it’s done. You can take pictures with your parents and your two close friends (or not, if you don’t wanna), then leave. You may hate it and it may mean nothing to you 50 years from now, but it will mean something to your parents.
I think that before you make any decision about it, you need to sit down and have a frank discussion with your parents. Part of what’s great about communicating with others is that sometimes other people have information or perspectives or advice that you may not have thought of yourself. You may find that they have some solutions for some of your issues, or can put your mind at ease about some of the things that are worrying you about attending graduation. Or, they may surprise you by telling you that they don’t care about it all that much either! I feel that you are operating in a vacuum and are in no position to decide yet, not until you speak with them!
Might as well go. It’s not like it’s the end of the world. It’s not like everyone would really remember what you said or wore, besides your parents - after all, they’re the ones you’re trying to impress in the end out of all that.
At first I thought you meant you had to talk… and I’m like “whaaat,” but I think you meant walk. I mean for my graduation, we walked in pairs. It was okay… not great, but eh, it was all for my parents. It was soooo boring, just waiting for your name to be called. It was meaningful to meet my friends at the end though, cause that would be the last time we would really see each other before we went our separate ways.
Once you reach college… it gets really lonely here. Like seriously… the atmosphere in college is more depressing than it is at high school. It’s way quieter… more serious. Not the kind of atmosphere that I wanted really… Like you’re in a lecture hall with hundreds of students, the professors don’t care who pass or fail, and no one looks at each other.
I didn’t go to my high school graduation, but if my parents would have wanted me to, I would have. But they honestly didn’t care.
Why didn’t I go? Well, even though I had lots of friends in hs, I thought it was a waste of time just as you do. To this day I will say that over 90% of what I learned in the three years that I spent in high school, I learned outside of the school, driven by my own interests. And I went to a pretty good magnet school and was in the top ten percent of my class.
So you have my sympathy. But I never avoided anything. Most people, teachers and friends, knew how I felt about school and frankly, would have been surprised if I had shown up. As a matter of fact, I remember the senior advisor, who was in charge of orchestrating the ceremony, asking me if I planned to participate. That’s how obvious my apathy was. I didn’t consider graduating from high school to be any great accomplishment. There were about a hundred other things that I was more proud of. So my skipping graduation was really just a matter of being true to myself.
But please, don’t try to weasel out of it by contriving some kind of plot. That’s just really really lame. Either be man (or woman) enough to communicate honestly with people, or go through the motions because it will make people who love you (your parents) happy and proud.
@finallyfree I’m going through the same thing right now. I told my mother that I didnt want to go to graduation like 5x, but she’s making me go anyway. My mom is also the type that celebrate anything. I just brought my cap and gown the other day ( which was do in nov). I also only have a couple of friends that, tbh, I don’t wanna talk to after graduation. I also waited at the last minute to ask for recs. I also got nothing out of high school nor did I accomplish anything.
The only thing that’s different is I didn’t do a dual-enrollment program, so I stayed in high-school all four years, so it’s not going to be awkward walking across the stage.
It’s sad that I’m walking across the stage for my parents , and not for myself (which I feel like it should be), but at least I can leave high school behind me once it’s all done.
@BeStillMyHeart oh well. i guess thats how life played its game on us. I guess we’ll both walk on stage, but will be part of the few that need to fake our attitudes. It’s a bit disappointing. I saw ur other posts and it seems you have ADHD. I have ADD so i guess that might be whats causing our situation. We’re both academically fine, but seem to hate the social part of school. TBH, I was more happy this year (at college) than I was in all 3 years in high school combined. My teachers see my intellect (and infact one of my teacher selected me to be a PAID tutor) and I’ve made a few friends (again im not the most outgoing person due to my social anxiety and ADD). Lets just hope things get better sooner or later.
but I actually didnt wait last minute to ask for recs. I gave my teachers one month time to write them, but they procrastinated HARD, so I really wouldnt say its my fault.
Oh they are there, but you’d probably have to scroll through the whole Parents Forum to find them. I never paid attention to the titles, so I didn’t have any luck searching either.
Basically, the comments pretty much fall into these categories (and they are also repeated in discussions of walking at college graduations):
My kid doesn’t care, I don’t care. If my kid wants to pick out some other special thing do do that day, we’ll go do that. If my kid doesn’t even want to do that, it’s fine with me. And yes, the other parent is on board with this too.
I have mixed feelings, but I’m supportive of my kid, and if my kid doesn’t want to walk, I will find a way to accept it.
I totally get where my kid is coming from, but the other parent/grandparents/other family members do care terribly about this, so my kid will have to walk because of that/those family member(s). But I’ll try to come up with a good-behavior reward for my kid for being so understanding about the whole thing.
If my kid doesn’t walk, I will be heartbroken forever, so I will whine and fuss until my kid does it.
5 The kid has to do what I say because I’m the boss, and I say the kid walks.
So, what do your parents think? Do they care? If they do, and there is no way to bring them around to your way of thinking, order the graduation regalia and do your best to get through the event. If your parents don’t care, or if you can convince them that there are better things to do with everyone’s time, then feel free to skip the graduation.
If you have enough dual credits to graduate this spring with your associates degree, you may find it more rewarding to walk at the community college graduation. That would be perfectly OK too.
… kk. its official. i talked to my parents (it was a short talk) and they said I HAVE to go. i thought it was going to be a serious talk atleast. i went and told them that I don’t want to go and that a lot of dual enrollment kids dont go,but they said I still have to go. (conversation lasted about 2 minutes…)