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I graduated from Cambridge last weekend. It’s a little after the fact, now — I’ve been back at work for nine months, along with the rest of my class, so the whole affair wound up feeling more like a reunion than a mortarboard-tossing end-of-school finalé. Still fun, though.
Sure, I have my small grumbles about JBS and Cambridge, but one thing I can’t begrudge the University is its absolute lock on pomp and circumstance — with nearly 800 years of graduation ceremonies under its belt, Cambridge gets away with some wacky stuff in the name of tradition.
Like, the graduation ceremony is still entirely in Latin. Which is a good thing, since it precludes the usual guest-celebrity commencement speech. (Boooring.) Instead, they get right down to the business of conferring degrees. (Actually, there’s one weird bit, first, where the praelector introduces the college, bowing low and doffing his hat at unpredictable intervals. Hadn’t seen anything like that before…)
And this, then, is how the actual degree is conferred: first, the praelector stretches out his fingers, and four students each grab a digit. Then, he gives a bit of a spiel about the degree, which in our case was rather funny, inasmuch the praelector couldn’t remember how to say ‘MBA’ in Latin. After an awkward pause, he mentioned something about Maestrum Negozium et Powerpointium which sounded convincing, and then in turn, we each kneeled on a small pillow in front of Magdalene’s Master, who would clasp our raised hands while giving us his own little benediction.
By the time I was down on the pillow, I half-expected somebody would pull out a sword and tap my shoulders, too, but in truth, you just get up, make a little bow, and head on out of the Senate House. I was actually quite joyous in the moment — but that had mostly to do with the fact that I didn’t trip over my gown when kneeling or getting up. It’s a small but real risk, apparently, and they warn you about it.
Anyhow, I did fine. Can’t entirely say the same thing about Emelyn — though I will proudly say she did an admirable job of keeping quiet for the first 30 students or so. She sat stately on Azure’s lap, flipping the pages of a board books, but after 15 minutes or so, she obviously felt it was time for a little dialogue with her book, instead. Now, it’s gravely quiet in the Senate House — far quieter than we’d anticipated — so Az made the call and had our babbling baby whisked outside by Tante Hannelore, in the nick of time. So it was all good.
In short: a fine weekend. We took Mom & Dad and the Hearsts over to Ely, too, where there’s a nice cathedral and some good chippies. Looking back, we took fewer photos than we should’ve, but hey, we were having a good time.
