By Andy Gutierrez//Murphy News Service
“Grad Fest is a one-stop-shop for graduating student where everything is discounted,” Salazar-Thomley said. “It makes it a lot easier for everyone to get everything in one place at once.” Murphy News Service photo by Louis Fine
Smiles and gowns filled the air this week as hundreds of graduating seniors attended Grad Fest ’15.
Sponsored by the U’s bookstore in Coffman’s Great Hall, the two-day event brought more than 1,000 students a day, Azyhadee Salazar-Thomley, a junior majoring in history who helped facilitate the event, said.
“Grad Fest is a one-stop-shop for graduating student where everything is discounted,” Salazar-Thomley said. “It makes it a lot easier for everyone to get everything in one place at once.”
With companies such as Jostens, TCF Bank, and Jansport, students were not only able get their graduation robes and diploma frames, but were also given opportunities to earn prizes and rewards for talking with different companies.
“Our fellow sponsors help make the event,” Salazar-Thomley said. “They just kind of take advantage of the whole situation to sell their products as well as everything else. “
For 23-year-old, Jessica Waldvogel, a business marketing education and human resource devolvement major in the College of Education and Human Development, graduation comes at an unusual time.
U track team member Jessica Waldvogel won’t be attending graduation because she will be running in a meet. Murphy News Service photo by Louis Fine
“I’m excited, I’m finally graduating!” Waldvogel said. “ Sadly, I’m on the track team so I will be running during graduation and will miss it.”
For others, graduation is a time of reflection and new beginnings.
“Graduation means you’re done with training, but still, the real training begins,” said Amon Amini, a neuroscience major in the College of Biological Sciences. “ It’s like you’re taking your test for your license, but they say you’re not a good driver until you’re out there on the road really practicing … you’ve got to practice on your own.”
After four years at the U Amini said he is ready to reinvent himself as he prepares to enter medical school.
“This is kind of just the beginning,” Amini said. “ It’s where you start to look for your end goal of where you want to be.”
Reporter Andy Gutierrez is a journalism student at the University of Minnesota.