Graduation #6

This past Wednesday was M1’s convocation in London, Ontario.  She graduated from the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.  She needed to be there at 8:00 AM, so rather than wake up at 5:00, we drove in the night before and stayed in a hotel.  M2 and I made the mini sojourn but M3 did not as she had school and final exams are just around the corner.

There were two separate ceremonies – one for Ivey students in the morning and the traditional one with additional students from other faculties in the afternoon.  The morning ceremony took place in an auditorium filled with the graduates.  The auditorium was not big enough for an audience so families and friends watched a livestream in various classrooms across the campus.  During the ceremony, graduates who made the Dean’s list were announced and M1 made it!  For Ivey, this means she was in the top 25% of the graduating class.

An interesting side note is that the student who had the highest mark was the daughter of my former manager.  We stopped working together way back in 2000, before our children were even born.  When the daughter’s name was announced, I wondered if she was related to my former manager because it’s not a common surname.  I hadn’t seen her in over ten years and we had a nice little reunion.  Coincidentally, we watched the livestream in the same classroom.

The afternoon ceremony took place at Canada Life Place, the local arena where the London Knights play.  This was the normal ceremony where each graduate walks across the stage to receive their diploma and families do get to watch live in the audience, and cheer.

The Ivey Business School is very prestigious and many times during this day it was mentioned that Ivey is the number one business school in Canada.  M1 graduated with an Honours Business and Administration degree and it was a tough road.  Through my conversations with M1, I can understand why Ivey is considered the top business school.  First, they teach a wide range of subjects from accounting to capital markets to entrepreneurship to marketing, and the list goes on.  Second, they focus not just on technical skills, but also practical skills, such as communication and collaboration.  After all, how many projects are there in the business world where you are actually working alone?  Also, after working for many years, I can say that I’ve seen more people succeed by just talking and not knowing anything of substance than the other way around.  Those who have the technical skills but can’t communicate often get hidden in the shadows somewhere while others get the glory.  It’s great that Ivey develops both sets of skills.  Third, there are a lot of extra-curricular activities where they guide and push the students to make contacts and network with people from big companies and small businesses.

Many times M1 called me to complain about how stressed she was with homework, mid-terms, group presentations, coffee chats, job fairs, and the list goes on.  So I know M1 is very proud of this degree that she worked so hard to obtain.  M1, Mommy and Daddy are very proud of you too!

Big Oh