Several thousand students said goodbye to IU for the last time as undergraduates Saturday at IU’s Memorial Stadium.
The IU undergraduate commencement speaker was alumna Sage Steele. She is currently in her second season as the host of NBA Countdown, ABC’s and ESPN’s flagship NBA studio show. She is also a central contributor to ESPN’s on-site NBA coverage at the NBA Finals, NBA Conference Finals and NBA All-Star Game.
“I truly believe that if it weren’t for Indiana University, I would never have come close to achieving my career goals and dreams of being a sportscaster,” she said in a University press release. “Because of that, being invited to be the commencement speaker exactly 20 years after receiving my diploma from IU is the greatest honor I have ever received.”
Several schools participated in the undergraduate ceremony, including the College of Arts and Sciences, the Kelley School of Business, the Jacobs School of Music and the Media School.
Students who have completed the requirements for graduation by May 2015 and students who will complete the requirements by the end of the 2015 summer
sessions were eligible to participate in the commencement ceremonies.
“It hasn’t quite set in yet that I won’t be walking across campus with my book bag anymore,” said Brigitte Hackler, an accounting and technology management major, in an email. “I’m officially an alumna. It has been such a fun whirlwind of a weekend; singing the alma mater, ‘Hail to Old IU,’ during the ceremony at the stadium, surrounded by my fellow graduates, family and friends, was surreal.”
Hackler said she will join BGBC Partners, an accounting firm in Indianapolis, as a staff accountant in September.
“Studying at the Jacobs School of Music has been a dream come true,” piano performance major Curtis Pavey said in an email. “Graduation today was inspiring and humbling. I have been so lucky to spend four years already at IU, and I can’t wait to spend another two here for my next degree.”
Pavey said he will return to IU in the fall as a graduate student studying piano performance at the music school.
“My time at IU and Kelley has been life-changing, magical and gone in a flash,” Carmen Siew, a supply chain management and business analytics major, said in an email. “How lucky I am to have graduated from a place I’ll miss so much. Bloomington will always be another place I can call home.”
Siew said she will soon be a technology consultant with Deloitte’s Chicago office.
“I feel like I have stage fright,” Rachel Brown, an English and communication and culture major, said in an email. “I am incredibly afraid of taking that step onto the stage, under the harsh heat of the lights that will display every flaw. But I know that once I do, everything I have rehearsed up until this point will come rushing back. I may forget a line now and then, but for the most part I feel ready to take the step onto the stage and play my part.”
Brown said she will attend the Denver Publishing Institute at the University of Denver this summer.
“Graduating is a roller coaster of emotion,” communication and culture major Connor Foy said in an email. “One minute you’re feeling more pride and self-accomplishment, and the next minute you’re paralyzed with anxiety. But thank God we can keep reminding ourselves that we spent four years in a Big Ten school, so if you can wake up at 6 a.m. to drink, you can do anything you set your mind to.”
Foy said he will join Live Nation’s Chicago office as a booking and marketing intern.
“It’s important to put the modern college experience in perspective,” Tommy Flynn, a political science and communication and culture major, said in an email. “We are so blessed to go to an American university in the 21st century and gain valuable knowledge which will help us become productive members of the global economy. It feels so great to be a part of such a distinct and rare group that can call themselves graduates.”
Flynn said he plans to go to law school in fall 2016.
“The Lord has really blessed me with this opportunity, and I am so excited to go out into the world and make it a better place, all the while representing one of the greatest institutions on the planet,” he said. “Enjoy your time in college but also keep your eye on the prize.”
