This weekend I attended three graduation ceremonies at UW Stout. CSTEMM, CAHS, and Graduate School. By the third one, I felt like I deserved some kind of honorary credential just for stamina. At one point, I was clapping out of rhythm, standing up half a second too late, and pretty sure I applauded someone twice just to be safe. If there were a degree for endurance and socially acceptable overclapping, I would have walked across that stage proudly.
Somewhere in the middle of all that clapping, though, something stuck with me. Education has a funny way of circling back on you.
I have never actually walked across that stage. My undergraduate degree was virtual, so there was no ceremony. My master’s ceremony landed right in the middle of COVID, which meant that moment quietly disappeared along with in person everything. When I finally had another chance to walk, life stepped in again. I had COVID and could not attend. At this point, it feels less like coincidence and more like the universe is politely but firmly saying, “Let’s just skip the stage part.” I have done all the work, completed the degrees, and somehow managed to miss every single moment where I would have crossed it. Honestly, if I did show up next time, I would probably trip just to stay consistent.
Sitting there this weekend, watching three full ceremonies, I realized something unexpected. Even though I never got that moment, I still understood exactly what it meant, because I have lived everything behind it. As I watched students walk across the stage, I started to see more than the ceremony. You can almost picture the late nights, the doubt, and the moments where finishing felt optional. You also know there was at least one group project that made them reconsider trusting other humans. Graduation looks like a single moment, but it is really the highlight reel of everything that came before it.
That realization pulled me back to a time when my own path felt anything but clear. It did not feel planned or intentional. It felt more like moving forward and hoping things would connect later. One of those “this will probably make sense someday” moments came from a project that, at the time, felt pretty straightforward. We were dealing with high turnover and inconsistent training. New employees were coming in, getting a couple of days of orientation, and then being sent out with what could best be described as optimistic expectations and minimal preparation.
So we tried something different. We built a four week onboarding bootcamp. It focused on safety, hands on learning, and actually giving people time to develop skills before expecting performance. At the time, I was not thinking about research or long term impact. I was thinking, “There has to be a better way than this,” which is often how all great ideas and at least a few questionable ones get started.
Then came the question that changed everything. How do we know if it worked?
That simple question turned a practical fix into something much bigger. Now it was not just about building training. It was about understanding impact. Did retention improve? Were employees actually more prepared? Did this make a difference beyond just feeling like a good idea? Somewhere along the way, that project became my graduate thesis. Looking back, I think the most surprising part is not that it turned into a thesis, but that at some point I willingly signed up to analyze my own idea in that much detail. Past me was clearly very ambitious or very unaware of how many pages that would become.
What mattered most, though, was the shift in thinking. I stopped assuming something worked just because it felt right. I started asking better questions. I started looking for evidence. I started realizing that good intentions are not the same as real impact.
Fast forward to this weekend, sitting through three ceremonies I never experienced for myself, and it finally clicked. I may not have walked across the stage, but I have lived the process. And in a lot of ways, that feels more meaningful than a few seconds of handshaking coordination and hoping your name gets pronounced correctly.
What I saw in those ceremonies was not just a moment of completion. It was a reminder that education is not really about that walk across the stage. It is about how all of those experiences slowly shape how you think, how you work, and how you approach problems. It is about the moments that do not feel important at the time but end up changing how you see everything later.
That is the part you do not always notice when you are in it. At the time, it just feels like another task, another class, another long week that you are trying to get through without forgetting an assignment or missing a deadline. But over time, those moments connect. Not cleanly, not in a straight line, and definitely not in a way that makes sense right away, but eventually they come together into something that looks a lot like growth.
Sitting through three graduations gave me a perspective I did not expect. It reminded me that the value of education is not in a single moment. It is in how those experiences stay with you and continue to shape what you do next.
And for me, even without the walk, that journey was still there.
Although, based on my track record, if I ever do get another chance to walk, I am probably bringing a chair and just clapping for myself from the sidelines. It seems to be working so far.
