It’s finally happening. Hard as you tried to push it off, you’re graduating. You are taking the big steps, literally, across the stage and into adulthood. To prepare for the big day, you chug a beer spend all morning primping, getting your hair perfectly curled, ironing your new dress, fixing your shoes. Then you cover it all up with that big, overpriced black gown. The gown that could easily fit two more people.

You look at yourself in disgust, then complain to your mom. “I look like a giant square!” you whine. So she soothes you in that sweet, motherly way. Well, unless it’s my mom then it’s an “Everyone does, get over it” kind of way.

True Story: No matter how bangin’ your bod or how figure-friendly your outfit, there’s nothing flattering about a graduation gown. But when you’re standing outside as your grandparents snap 1,637 pictures of you lookin’ round and squat in that rayon muumuu, you can at least take solace in the fact that you’re not wearing this:

Really, though, regardless of what you wear or how much you sweat under that gown, congratulations on this major accomplishment. No, really. We know what you’ve been up to for the past 4 years, so congrats on making it out alive…and ready to take on the real world. Yay, you!

Graduation Day. The most important day of your college career. (At least for your parents.) A day to celebrate. A day to remember. A day  to cherish. A day…that can definitely get pretty boring. Because while our parents and professors may be up for a few hours of ceremony and speeches, I personally feel like I could do without the hours upon hours of speeches that college seniors have to deal with… but speeches we will have to endure. (Want a preview? Check out our graduation speech mashup.)

Or at least, you know, pretend to endure. Because while we can’t get out of listening to those speeches, we can make them a little bit more entertaining. Sure you’ll have to sit there quietly and listen to your president speak, listen to the valedictorian speak, and listen to the commencement speaker give his or her big speech. But that doesn’t mean your mind is not allowed to wander right? I mean it’s only natural. So let it wander on over to one of these games.

1. Count the “Likes, Okays, Ums, and Yeas”

Speeches getting boring? That’s okay. Focus on the speech impediments instead. Every speaker has them. Whether it be a tendency to say like far too often, um in between every other word, or phrase every statement like it’s a question, every speaker has one. In high school, I had a math teacher who said “um kay” after every single sentence. I spent many a math class keeping track of just how many times she could say that particular phrase in a 40 minute period. Want a hint? It was well over ninety.

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So there’s a lot of things that come to my mind when I think about graduation. There’s the week of senior festivities that takes place before, and the long, relaxing summer that takes place after. There’s caps and gowns and diplomas and awards and speeches. Lots of speeches.

From the president of your college to your valedictorian there will be a lot of people giving your advice on graduation day, but none more important than the allusive commencement speaker. For some schools, this is just another really long, really boring speech. But for a special few  the commencement speech, and the commencement speaker, is actually pretty great. I know if I went to one of these schools I’d actually be listening to my commencement speaker, not falling asleep in my chair.

Uh, not that I plan on doing that anyway…

When most people (read: adults) think of the ideal commencement speaker, they think of someone inspiring, successful, notorious. When I think of that person, all I can think is: BORING. Come on, college graduation day is already the most bittersweet in every college student’s life; it’s the end of an era, the end of irresponsibility, the end of guilting your parents into buying you things because you’re “so stressed out from exams.” The last thing college seniors want is a 90-minute speech from some politician talking about how the world is their oyster.

Which explains why students at GW have taken it upon themselves to bring in someone a bit more exciting for this year’s commencement. (Read all about the campaign here.) And let’s be honest, who’s more exciting than Charlie Sheen? The guy is from another world, has tiger blood coursing through his veins, and un-addicted himself to drugs just by flipping a switch in his brain. He’s totally WINNING.

Who wouldn’t want that guy bidding them adieu as they enter the real world?

Oh right, the university. It seems the head honchos at GW find Sheen to be a bit too extreme of a speaker. Apparently he’s a terrible example and really has nothing to offer to class of 2011. Which would be a good argument if there weren’t plenty of terrible commencement speakers who have…uh…spoken before him.

I mean, really, it can be a whole lot worse than Charlie Sheen. And it has been. Read More »

By now most of the college graduations have come and gone. You (former) seniors have already thrown out that overpriced, hot (as in temperature, not sexy factor) gown; hung that tassel from your rear view mirror; and opened all those necessary-but-totally-boring (luggage? WTF?) gifts. And you’ve probably forgotten the important lessons shared with you by your influential speaker. Or you were too blacked out to pay much attention to them in the first place.

Well, don’t worry, my friends-who-are-now-joining-me-in-the-real-world; the Internet has got you covered. Here, in only 4 minutes and from the comfort of your very own bed (which you are undoubtedly lying in, crying, surrounded by the crumbs/shrapnel of depressed eating), is a little mashup of this year’s best graduation speeches. Maybe they’ll motivate you or inspire you. Or maybe they’ll just give you four minutes free of tears, fears and anxiety. Either way, enjoy. And congratulations!

(And for all you undergrads who can still call college home, you can enjoy this too. Along with another few years of college. Lucky bastards.)

A very big thanks to the Huffington Post for this rad vid.

If I can speak for most undergrads, we dread graduation day more than the apocalypse itself. It means leaving college and entering the real world, where it won’t be acceptable to beer bong in broad daylight on the roof of a frat house or blow off all your responsibilities to watch an entire season of the Office in bed.

Although the whole “graduating” thing sucks in theory, there’s always a lot of excitement surrounding the commencement speaker (or controversy, if you remember the whole Obama at Notre Dame debacle…). A good speaker can trick you into thinking this isn’t the worst day of your life inspire you to look ahead to the future and all the possibilities that lay ahead (if they’re a huge success, why can’t you be!?). And a bad speaker will allow you a good 45-minute power nap.

So who will be inspired come graduation day and who will be snoozing in their caps and gowns? Here is a list of some serious commencement speaker heavy hitters and the lucky seniors who get to listen to ‘em: Read More »

Graduation may be an exciting milestone, but the ceremony itself is far from memorable for most people. Not only is sitting in a cap and gown for three straight hours uncomfortable (especially when it’s hot and that itchy rayon is rubbing against your neck), but the speeches are boring… and they go on forever. Oh, and leaving college is incredibly depressing.

But that whole “boring speech” thing isn’t the case for some lucky graduating classes. Yes, there are a select few schools in this country that had some pretty bomb diggity commencement speakers this year. Speakers who make me sorta wish I could sit through a three hour ceremony getting a weird tanline on my forehead from that ridiculous cap I’d be forced to wear.

Below is a list of the most bad ass commencement speakers of 2009. See, it’s not so bad being the class of ’09! Read More »