You can bash yourself all you want, but keep me out of it!

I found out today that Boise State students who graduate in the summer or fall semester "aren't invited" to walk in the spring graduation ceremony because, as the graduation coordinator so eloquently phrased it, "the spring graduation ceremony is just so ginormous." This really pissed me off for a few minutes, because I and several people I know who are graduating fall semester had planned to walk in the spring.

I don't want to walk in the winter ceremony because, frankly, my parents are basically hermits and won't come to the ceremony. I doubt anyone else I know would come out just to watch me walk, either, because it's tedious and on a Saturday morning right before Christmas. Then I realized I don't really want to go down there and sit around with a bunch of people I don't know for hours and hours to walk across the stage when I already have my diploma anyway.
So, I realized that I don't really care that much about walking, but I probably would have had I been a more traditional student and graduated in four years and had a group of friends who were graduating with me. I was fine.

Then one of my other friends who's graduating in the fall but has a scheduling conflict and planned to also walk in the spring ceremony left this lovely message for me publicly on Facebook: "Sorry you can't walk...I'm already over it, and I don't graduate for another month. Boise State blows."

The above comment pisses me off on many levels: firstly (and I'll ignore any snarky smugness and--ahem-- insincerity), because I don't think BSU sucks as bad as everyone likes to make out. Certainly it has annoying administrative policies--but I'm sure every school has some annoying policies in place in differing areas. Certainly BSU leaves several somethings to desire, and yes, the football team gets more attention than the academics. But the football team brings in money and national recognition which will benefit the school academically in the long run (a very slow process, maybe, but it is happening, even though this Statesman article omits any mention of football money or recognition). Also, Boise State contributes a lot to the community in terms of jobs, cultural events, promotion of higher education, revenue, etc.

Sometimes, citizens, one must make a deal with the devil to get what one wants.

What I don't understand is if you've spent your time, energy, and money to get a degree from a school, why would you go around bashing it all the time? I did this in my nihilistic early-twenties I'm-too-jaded-to-care-about-anything phase, but looking back on that...it was so stupid and ultimately the only one who got hurt by my acting like a too-cool-for-school little bitch was me, not Boise State. If you put so much into something yet you hate it at the same time, to me it's sort of like poisoning yourself. Things are what you make of them.

BSU does have some good programs and professors (MFA Writing, Nursing, Engineering), even if it isn't a huge research institute, even if it isn't world famous, even if it doesn't have the most diverse selection of degrees available. I've never heard of anybody who couldn't get into a masters program or transfer to another undergrad program because they went to BSU.

I got my degree from BSU; regardless of how it's ranked, when you bash it you bash me.