After announcements are sent out, classes are finished and grades are finally posted — all that is left for soon-to-be-graduates to do is receive a diploma while looking fine in the traditional cap and gown. Unless, of course, they decide to spruce things up with a personalized cap to top it all off.
Saturday, May 13 marked the day of the long-awaited commencement ceremonies for all spring 2017 Newman graduates. Many seniors used this final event as a chance to express themselves with fun colors, a quick shout-out or degree-themed decorations.
Graduate Cheyenne Rouse earned a Bachelor of Arts with an emphasis in graphic design during her years at Newman. It was her love of doing floral decor in her designs that sparked inspiration for her cap’s decoration, she said.
“Floral decor is something I’ve worked on doing this year, and finding the pieces for the cap was amazing luck,” Rouse said. “I just had to do it.”
But graduates even outside of art majors or minors decided to get artsy with their graduation caps.
Graduate Rebecca Winter earned an Associate of Science that focused on occupational therapy during her time at Newman. For her graduation cap, she decided she wanted to do a play on words that also represented her degree, she said.
“In occupational therapy, we help people regain and enable them to live their lives more independently after they have been hurt, had surgery, or have difficulties with everyday activities like getting dressed, eating, or making meals,” Winter said. “We see the potential in others and help them achieve their goals, and it just so happened ‘potential’ has ‘OTA’ in it. Plus I love sparkles, so it gave me a good excuse to have purposeful bedazzling.”
Graduate Edith Herrera also took the degree-themed approach and armed herself with tape, plastic glitter handcuffs from Party City and print-outs of ‘police line do not cross’ tape to make the cap she wanted. Herrera earned a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice as well as a minor in theology while attending Newman.
“Initially, Pinterest and Google gave me lots of ideas,” she said. “At the same time, I didn’t want to copy it to the last detail. As we were shopping for the materials, my friend bumped into the glitter handcuffs, and I grabbed onto them. They read my mind!”
Graduate Ruben Lerma also decided to get crafty with his cap. Lerma earned a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Newman, and it was not until the night before graduation that he decided to decorate his cap.
“I was hit with a really big wave of nostalgia and went ahead and decorated my cap at the last minute,” Lerma said. “This felt like the last moment for me to send one more thought out, just one last time to Newman and everyone who goes here — mainly that I love my parents, and that their sacrifice helped to get where I am now.”
More decorated caps from the 2017 spring graduates:
Decorated caps from the 2016 spring graduates:
