Ask any of the non-traditional Eastern graduates what commencement day means to them, and you’ll get completely different answers. A mother of four who studied after the kids went to bed. A teacher who decided one career wasn’t her whole story. A man who signed up for a master’s degree in a field he’d never worked in, just because he wanted a new challenge. The eldest of ten siblings, the first in her family to ever do this. A woman who carried her late grandmother’s memory across that stage like a second diploma.
Different ages. Different degrees. Different reasons for being here. But on a spring day at The Mann Center, all nine of them walked across the same stage, and all nine of them made it to the other side.
Giuliani Casiano is the oldest of ten kids. Nobody in her family had ever graduated from college before. When she walked across the stage to pick up her Bachelor of Science in Health Science, she was thinking about all of them. “I just want to show a big example for my siblings,” she said. “Like, you know, it’s possible.” She wished her grandmother, who passed away before COVID, could have been there to see it. But she carried her anyway.
That feeling of carrying someone with you ran through almost every conversation that day. Deira Faith Washington grew up watching her grandmother run a home daycare. That’s where her love for kids came from, and why she spent years working toward her degree in early childhood Studies, and why she wants to stand in front of a classroom of her own one day. Her grandmother didn’t make it to graduation. But Washington did, and she was honest about what that meant. “I started a lot of things that I didn’t finish,” she said. “So this is the moment to actually start it and see it through.”
For most of these graduates, getting here meant building their education around a life that was already full. Sarah Dye finished her bachelor’s in early childhood studies without ever once setting foot on Eastern’s campus. She was working full-time the whole way through, logging into class around everything else. She doesn’t say that like it’s a complaint. She says it like it’s the point. “I was still able to work full-time and finish my degree online. It just made it a lot easier.” She’s doing it partly for herself, and partly for her younger sister, hoping that seeing her cross that stage is enough to convince her it’s worth it too.
Jamie Lynn Lee was doing it for four people specifically. “My four beautiful children, whom I fought very hard to have their mom graduate.” She’ll tell you the online format had its challenges, it’s not always easy to feel connected when everything happens through a screen. But something surprised her along the way. “Each and every one of my professors made a point to make that connection. And that was the best overall experience I could have had.” Her grandfather was the reason she became a math teacher. He wasn’t there either. But the path he set her on led her, eventually, to this.
Julie Keegan’s master’s cohort in nursing education had five people in it. She says that by the end, even through a screen, they genuinely knew each other. “We’ve really gotten to know each other pretty closely over the years.” It’s a small thing, maybe. But it matters the reminder that online doesn’t have to mean alone.
Not everyone came in with a lifelong dream they were finally chasing. Some of them just reached a point where they wanted something different and went after it. John Barrassa enrolled in a master’s in data science from a completely unrelated background, purely because he wanted a challenge. Standing at commencement, he still seemed a little amazed it worked. “I can’t believe that we are graduating right now. At the beginning, it seemed tough, but the moment you begin, it gets easier and easier.” Alison Suh taught kids for years, everything from three-year-olds to high schoolers, and one day decided she was ready to try something new. So she went back to school and earned a master’s in data science. “As rewarding as it was, I felt like I wanted to expand a little bit more for myself.” A teacher becoming a student again. There’s something quietly powerful about that.
Giuseppe made the journey without his family. They’re in another country and couldn’t be there. He stood at that ceremony by himself, holding a diploma he’d set his sights on a long time ago. “It’s a big milestone that I had in my mind, and I’m glad I was able to accomplish it.” He didn’t dwell on who was missing. “They are here with me, with their heart.”
Katie Ann Brennan has a son who’s almost two. He wasn’t at the ceremony, a little too young to sit through the pomp and circumstance. But someday she’ll tell him about the day she went for her dreams and actually got there. When asked what surprised her most, she didn’t talk about the coursework or the late nights. She talked about the moment itself. “Actually being able to accomplish this and go for my dreams.” Not that it was hard, that she did it.
And then there’s Casiano, again the oldest of ten, the first to graduate, who knows her diploma carries more weight than just her name on it. Every one of her siblings was watching. That’s not pressure. That’s the whole point.
“You gotta keep going,” said Washington, when asked what she’d say to someone who thought college wasn’t for them. “Push through. You’ll see the impossible when you keep growing.”
She’s not speaking in the abstract. She earned that line, and so did the thousands of other students who graduated this spring.
