It was the day that finally marked the ending of my 3 years at University College London and also probably the last time I would get to see many of the great friends I made at university.
Pic Info: A picture of me and one of my best friends at university: Hasan Ali from the Middle-East.
The Ceremony kicked off with the Vice-Provost of UCL giving a rather interesting speech which I guess was aimed at convincing all of us how good UCL is.
UCL is the 3rd oldest university in the UK (right after Oxford and Cambridge) and apparently one of the four UK universities that made it to the Top 25 Universities of the World according to a ranking by Newsweek (somebody wanna double-check this little statement for me?) Perhaps I should've reminded him that back in Malaysia, few has ever heard of UCL but I pondered the possibility of me being beaten up very badly by UCL-Patriots there and I decided to keep my mouth shut.
So I focused my attention to everything else on stage.
I just couldn't help but notice that halfway through the ceremony, a good number of the academic professors on stage were falling asleep one by one. Then again, I guess it's not my place to blame them for that since this is probably just one of the million graduation ceremonies they would have to be going in their lifetimes. Then before I knew it, it was my turn to go on stage to shake hands with the Almighty Vice-Provost of UCL.
I walked on to the stage and shook hands with the Vice Provost and he said to me
"Congratulations on your graduating from University College London, what are your plans now?"
I looked at him with a nervous smile while watching the professors behind me stare intently at me and I replied
"I run an internet business of my own now sir."
I looked at him expecting him to say
"WHAT?! YOU FOOL!!! WHY DIDN'T YOU GO WORK IN AN INVESTMENT BANK LIKE EVERYONE ELSE AND MAKE BIG MONEY?!?!"
But instead he said
"Wow!!! That's very enterprising of you. I do wish you good luck and hope you succeed."
"Thank you... I hope so too".
and I walked off the stage.
Anyway, since it was the last time I was going to see many of my friends we made sure that we took lots of pictures.
It was interesting seeing where many of my friends were going.
A big bulk of them had jobs at investment banks like Goldman Sachs, ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan and another big bulk of them were going off to do postgraduate studies at universities like Harvard and Stanford. Pic Info: Alina, Joanne and I waiting for the ceremony to start
It was truly humbling being in the presence of all these high achievers and you know will somehow make it big one day in whatever they do.
Pic Info: My last picture with Alina right after our Graduation Ceremony.
Anyway, for those of you who might be interested, here's a video of the defining moment when I went on stage to shake hands with the Vice-Provost.
For a bunch of 22 year olds in London, a new chapter in life has just begun.