Okay, so I’m definitely not actually ‘sneaking in’. I am actually officially in tomorrow’s ceremony.
But I’m just doing this little explainer as to why, really fast.
Because I officially graduated in August 2021 (at the end of summer 2021), teeeechnically, I was supposed to graduate in May 2021 ceremony.
BUT… it was virtual and I didn’t want to do that.
Also, virtualness aside, I had SO. MUCH. WORK. to do in the summer of 2021. I had to take the ‘capstone’ class in BOTH of my majors and BOTH of my minors.
How anti-climatic would it have felt to get to go to graduation, just to then have to do all that WORK?
I wanted to be done, done, done and have graduation be a *celebration*. Tbh, I think they should let people pick which one they’d rather choose if they’re a summer graduate. I don’t think anyone should have their only option, if they want to attend a graduation, to be attending the ceremony before the degree is actually granted, especially as anything could happen that could make you not finish in the summer (family emergency, heath emergency, you end up stuck out of the country, etc etc etc).
But I digress. I don’t make the policies. I don’t work for Berklee. All I can do is try to get the policies to work for me.
A long time ago, when I was in college the first time around, I took CLEP tests for every liberal arts class you could pass out of. And I passed them all – except one.
I was sick one of the weeks I was taking one of the classes, but I didn’t want to not to it, because I was doing so well at knocking them out. So, I went anyway, but was just tired and foggy brain and whatever (also, it was world history – something I’m not nearly as strong in as say English – something which I did pass), so maybe I wouldn’t have passed even had I not been sick!
Either way, whatever the reason, I didn’t pass it. You can take the CLEP again (in, I think 6 months from your original test), but I ultimately didn’t at the time… I think because I had started the whole heart-problem, in-and-out-of-the-hospital thing. Then I quit school. And then it didn’t matter anymore. So, 3 credits, or one CLEP test was unspoken for.
And instead of studying for a test, I ultimately decided to just take a class at a local LA community college. It was super cheap, since I’m a resident. I got to take a class focused in the history of racism (as it just had to be a history class), which was something worthwhile to study.
So, I was slated to finish that class in June 2021. (The LA Community College schedule was different from Berklee, so I was finishing that one after summer Berklee semester had already started.)
For various reasons, I sorta kinda wanted to hold back officially transferring that class onto my transcript.
I was afraid to lose out on certain perks of being an ‘undergrad student’ (various things you could apply to), and so I wanted to wait and not ‘officially’ graduate until like May 2022 – and I knew someone [not Berklee related, but another school] who did go to a program for college graduates, but didn’t get college ‘officially’ squared away until later.
And so I thought maybe that could be me! I could move to the next program, and as long as it’s all worked out before I actually graduate grad school, it’ll be fine, right?
Well, no. Berklee was having none of that haha. So, I would have to make sure everything was squared away by the end of the summer, which is fine and reasonable. Of course in general, you should actually have to fully finish your undergrad before you start your master’s.
But if I wanted to not qualify for graduation, I was going to have to fall in a special sort of ‘golden window,’ where everything was squared away by August but NOT by early June. And luckily(!) that’s exactly what happened!
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!