In June I attended a graduation ceremony in Southlake, Texas during the Covid-19 pandemic. The school tried to make the ceremony as traditional as possible by keeping the location, Dragon Stadium, the same as normal years and including a stage walk to award diplomas. Instead of shaking hands, the principal bumped elbows with each student. The ceremony took up about twice as much space as usual because each student had to be spaced six feet from each other. Additionally, students were asked to wear a mask when they got up from their assigned seat. 

I was most surprised by the number of people on their cell phones during the ceremony. Perhaps they were FaceTiming relatives who couldn’t make it, or maybe they needed to catch up on TikToks.

Contact Maya Shetty at mshetty ‘at’ stanford.edu.

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