Graduation

Well, tonight's the night. At sometime around 7 PM EDT, I will be hooded by my major professor, walk across the stage at the Breslin Student Event Center, shake hands with a couple of people, and receive something presumably resembling a diploma. It will appear that I have graduated and hold a Ph.D. in Family and Child Ecology with a specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy from Michigan State University. But wait, there's more.

You see, here at good ol' MSU, there is no summer graduation ceremony. Given the various delays of my dissertation, I am not able to submit my approved dissertation to the graduate school in time to officially graduate in May. But because this is the only ceremony offered to me, I am proceeding with the ceremony nonetheless. The problem is that I still have quite a lot of work to do. I essentially have 3 months to finish collecting and analyzing data, write up said analysis and conclusions, and submit it to my committee for review. I will defend my dissertation before the committee at 9 AM on August 18, and assuming they don't want me to rewrite the thing, I'll turn it into the graduate school about a week later. At that point, and not a moment sooner, will I officially have my Ph.D. and be able to begin my post-student life.

So, while tonight's graduation is fun, symbolic, and good to remember, I still have an underlying sense of uneasiness about it. Despite the encouraging words from my mom, my dad, my grandparents, my in-laws, my wife, my friends, and many other people, I still can't shake the feeling that the ceremony, while symbolic, is simply a fraud. I'm not done. That reality is still foremost in my mind. I may be proud of my accomplishments to this point, and I might recognize that the reality of completion is eminent, but it's not here yet, and it won't be here tonight. I really hope I enjoy the ceremony tonight, because I'll still have three months before I can honestly say I've graduated.