Graduation should be a chance for friends and family to gather around and celebrate their loved one’s achievement of receiving a diploma.  

It should also be a time for excitement and celebrations. 

This year’s graduation ceremony falls short of that expectation.

CSU Bakersfield had the opportunity to choose between having two ceremonies or one larger one.

The decision makers chose to have the one commencement to save on money, and supposedly time, yet they have cut corners.

Since the ceremony starts at 8 a.m., the CSUB staff have decided they will open the gates to the ceremony at 6 a.m., but for some students who are not from the Bakersfield area that means their families must be up and out of the house around 4 a.m. just to make it in time.

Once the soccer stadium has filled up, there will be overflow in the Icardo Room.

All that states to those unfortunate few who were not on campus in time for stadium seating is that they are unwanted.

The back-up seating, just in case the Icardo Room fills, is the softball practice field.

All those friends and families, who are in the overflow, get to watch their loved ones walk across the stage on a big screen.   

There will be no yelling and cheering when the graduates name is called.

With some people registered for fifty guests the chances of having to use not one, but both overflow locations are high.

Why couldn’t the ceremony be held at the Rabobank Arena? High schools across Kern County hold their ceremonies there with plenty of room.

There will also be no commencement speaker at this year’s undergraduate ceremony.

The commencement speaker is one of the highlights of a graduation ceremony.

To not have someone tell you that everything will be alright if you don’t have an amazing job right outside of college is unfair.

Other graduating classes have had commencement speakers.

After working so hard for a degree, a commencement speaker is a treat, yet the class of 2017 will not get the privilege of hearing one.

All this graduating class with get to hear is CSUB President Horace Mitchell give a speech.

Disability services have yet to be disclosed on the ceremonies tag on the CSUB website.

Those students need to be notified of what kind of services they are being granted for the ceremonies, so they don’t have to worry.

If anything goes wrong with the ceremony, the university only has themselves to blame.

There might be a few changes for next year’s ceremonies depending on how this year’s turns out.