I'm so excited to finally share that I have graduated with my Master of Arts in Higher Education Administration along with an Academic Advising Certificate! It's been a long 2 years of experiencing a pandemic, working full-time, taking 2 classes per term (including summers), a major snow storm, and other stressors of life. However, that all came to a close on Saturday, August 6, 2022! Here's a recap of the big day:
Preparing for Graduation Day
Technically, I've been preparing to graduate since I began my program back in Fall 2020. This included some late nights, non-stop study weekends, and missing out on activities with family and friends. Food delivery and frozen home-cooked meals that my parents prepared for me got me through this time. A few weeks ago, I purchased materials to decorate my graduation cap so my family could easily spot me from the crowd. Fast forward to the week of graduation and I still had quite a bit on my to-do list. I had to drop off my regalia at the cleaners on my way to work, assist with onboarding new staff at work during the week, get my nails done, pick up my gown from the cleaners, and pack my bags for my weekend in Houston.
I drove to Houston to stay with my parents for the weekend and got there Thursday evening after work and an alumni event. The next day, I worked part of the day from home before getting my hair done. That was the last piece to the graduation preparation puzzle before arriving at graduation day!
The Commencement Ceremony
After a smooth hour and a half drive to Huntsville, Texas and easily parking in the garage next to the arena, I departed from my family to check-in for graduation at the building across the street. I met up with with some of my cohort who were also walking at graduation and it was the first time most of us had ever seen each other in person. These are the sorts of things you experience when you complete a fully online degree program! Everyone got their regalia prepared for showtime and we all lined up to march into the arena. I looked for my family as I walked in, doing so quite easily thanks to a picture my mom texted to me earlier and they were also waving at me. My brother was watching the livestream and communicated with me via text message during the ceremony to let me know.
After nearly 2 hours of sitting in the crowd with the other graduates, it was finally my turn to cross the stage! In all honesty, that moment is a typically a blur. This time was different though. My name was finally said correctly, I knew exactly where I was going and what my interaction with the livestream camera would be. I had a plan that I was able to successfully execute! Wait, why am I telling you this? I can just show you. You can see me walk across the stage from 1:50:00-1:51:08, but the entire ceremony is linked below if you want to watch the whole thing!
After Party
We took some pictures outside of the arena before figuring out who would be going in which vehicles so we could drive to Pappadeaux for dinner. I made reservations several days ago and we were able to arrive a few minutes early. Maybe I just haven't had Pappadeaux in a while, but this was one of the best tasting meals I've eaten from there! I had the crawfish platter and the crawfish was perfectly spicy. I also had a nice pineapple refresher to sip on as I ate my food.
When dinner was done, our group made our way back home where my parents had a custom graduation cake from Cynthia's Kitchen waiting for me. It was a beautiful and delicious cake! It was designed to look like an orange graduation cap and had a diploma on the side along with my name and degree on the base. Oh, and the fondant? That was absolute perfection! It was smooth, not thick, and tasted like a marshmallow –– exactly like fondant should be. You know how some people like icing more than cake or vice versa? I'm the person that appreciates good cake. If a cake without frosting is tasty, then that means I'm eating a good cake. This cake was great and the icing and fondant were sweet compliments to it!
Wrap-Up
As you can imagine, I am thrilled to finally be done with school after a tiring 2 years! I'm looking forward to returning to being more involved in the things I love doing. I have travel plans, ideas for this blog, activities I want to do with friends, and hobbies I want to explore again. You may be wondering if I have plans to pursue a doctoral program. The answer to that is yes! However, I just need to take an extended break from school first. I don't have a timeline for when I will return to school for that, but it will happen one day. In the meantime, I'm going to focus on curating new content for Kimi's Travel Thoughts and posting more pictures from my graduation on Instagram (@kimistravelthoughts)!
Cover image photo credit: Madelyn Myers Photography
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