Chan's Personal Blog

So today was the convocation day for the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Victoria. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with Co-op Distinction and Academic Distinction. Now I can tag a B.Sc after my name on e-mail and business cards now! Aaahhh... money well spent.

It was kind of fun seeing all my friends and foes in the faculty one last time before everyone went their separate ways. In either case, the ceremony was filled with protocol and elaborate procedures. When the ceremony started, they played this wierd introduction music for the dignitaries, deans, senators, and chancellors as they entered. It kind of sounded like the "fight to the death" music from the classic Star Trek. It was kind of epic, but awkward sounding. It's like they wanted you to be in awe when you saw the academic elite take the stage. Attention everyone, we present the chancellor, please acknowledge him with an awkward gasp. GASP!

Anyways, the ceremony had some interesting parts. I liked how PhD students were accompanied by their supervising professor when receiving their degree. It's like a master passing the torch to the student. We also had a bassist receive an honourary degree, and he performed an insanely difficult piece, it was great, and very entertaining.

The rest of the ceremony got fairly tedious as it was every student receiving their degrees. You'd have the occasional student pushed to the front of the stage by a marshal because the student was standing at the wrong spot. Sometimes you had students forget to bow to the chancellor, or forget to remove their hats (it was part of the protocol).

It was funny to see the demographic differences of faculties in the room. Computer science and engineering was dominated by males, and a good majority of them were ethnic minorities. Whereas the arts department was dominated by females, and most of them were white.

In computer science, I think there were 98 graduates. Out of that, I counted the number of ethnic minority students we had, based on a very precise scientific measurement: people with funny sounding names. I counted about 43/98 graduates were minorities, so that's about 44%. The invasion goes well .

Another funny thing happened. Every time I graduate or get an award/recognition for something, my name always gets mangled. In high school, I had helped with sound/lights for a drama production, and the program said, special thanks to Christopher Chang, this was a typo. For those who don't know, Christopher Chang is my arch-enemy because he always gets credit for my work. For my high school graduation, I received a book with the name, Christophr Chan printed on the cover. My name tag for this convocation ceremony read, Christopher Cha. Nice.

A total of three PCS Grad 2000 alumni received their degrees today at this ceremony:

Alan - Computer Science, Bachelor of Science with an Economics Minor
Eton - Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Engineering with Co-op Distinction
CHaN (that's me) - Computer Science, Bachelor of Science with Co-op Distinction and Academic Distinction.

(Co-op Distinction means the student had completed 16-20 months of relevent work experience in their field of study.)

That makes us G2K+5 I guess. I'm sorry Bill, it looks like Alan beat you to the degree. Looks like you're last. It also sounds like Alan's moving back to Taiwan next week where he will fulfill his military draft obligations which will take two years. Best of luck on that one.

All in all though, the ceremony was rather anti-climatic, which I expected. I had finished my degree last Decemeber, and I already had my closure/celebration back then. I don't dwell on accomplishments for too long, and I quickly move on to the next thing. This whole ceremony felt more like a formality than anything. I already started my masters degree back in January, so I'm already knee-deep in school. I don't feel like I've finished anything, this feels more like a start. I'll probably be more excited when I finish my second degree as it will be a true finish. Looking back I think ultimately the journey was more important and than its end.

Anyways, congratulations to all my fellow graduates, friends, and family. A special congrats to those who finished their degrees today: Alan, Del, Eton, Martee, Mike, Myron, Peter, Paul, and Sadiq.

Cheers.