On June 14th, 2008 I graduated from Portland State University. I spent the last two years finishing up my B.S. in Marketing after graduating with my AAOT from Rogue Community College in 2001. The interesting fact about the year 2008: I just graduated from college and in a couple of months in August, I’ll be having my 10 year high school reunion…lol
I was able to take some pics on my cell phone of the events that led up to me accepting my degree. My graduation was held at the Rose Garden Arena, the same venue that the Portland Trailblazers play their home games in. From what was told to the students, there were almost 5000 people graduating this year and of those 1700 were participating in the commencement ceremony. In attendance at the Rose Garden was approximately 15,000 family, friends, and students to help celebrate the event.
The ceremony started at 10am, but I had to be at the arena 90 minutes prior. We assembled in the exhibit hall of the Rose Quarter. We then walked single file to the back entrance to the arena. This is the same area that all of the celebrities use before and after events.
Once we got inside, we used the same hallway that the Blazers frequent. It was a walk through time of all of the concerts and games that were held in the arena.
An example was this Kiss photo that I took along my walk through the hallway.
We walked through the area that housed the Blazer’s locker room. Here is the entrance to the locker room that the players use.
Out from the locker room area we approached the curtain that divided us from the crowd in the arena.
This was the view we saw as we came out of the curtain and entered the arena floor.
That’s a lot of graduates. Only 19% of them got business degrees. Welcome to the world of job market competition!
LONG STORY SHORT…We had some great speakers, but the important part occurred when I got to walk across the stage and receive my Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing.
After the event, outside of the Rose Garden Arena.
Thank you to my mom and sister for making the trip up from Grants Pass, OR and Red Bluff, CA respectively.
So what now? Of course I’m in desperate search for a new career to begin. Not that I hate Safeway, but I didn’t pay $22K to be able to ask, “Would you like help out with your groceries?”
My plan is to spend a couple of years gaining some more real world experience, pay off my debts, and then head back to school for my MBA (Masters in Business Administration).
Thank You to everyone who supported me and understood when I couldn’t socialize because I had to study, because I got off from work at 1am, because I had to be up at 6am for work, or because I had to help type a 100 page report. I sacrificed a lot recently, and now I’m finally able to reap the rewards.