Graduation Essay Samples

The story under consideration is “Graduation” by Maya Angelou. The story relates the events of the author’s graduation day. Angelou dwells on the mixture of feelings and emotions which she experienced that day and which she could not forget for years because they showed to her why she should be proud of her people and her race.
Maya Angelou studied in a segregated school for the black, Lafayette County Training School. She was among the best in her class and felt extremely proud of it. At the same time she felt she had earned it owing to her hard work and diligence in everything she did. The same could be said about her brother who had graduated a year before and whom she had always wanted to equal in the level of knowledge possessed.
Maya was waiting for her graduation day with thrill because she expected her achievements to be acknowledged in public so that everyone, including her brother, could see what she had accomplished. She was sure that her accomplishments would pave a further successful life for her.
However, her educators’ expectations for her and her classmates were different. It was clarified in the speech given by the invited guest, Mr. Edward Donleavy. He talked for quite a while about the improvements in the Central school, which was for the white. All those improvements concerned up-grading scientific equipment and teaching methods. In contrast, when he started talking about Maya’s school and decided he had to praise them, too, for something, all he could think of was sport achievements. As a result, the future he drew for boys in Maya’s school was either connected with sport or with one of A & M schools where they could be taught to be carpenters, masons, handymen, etc. Girls were not even mentioned; perhaps, he did not think they were good for anything.
But that was not what Maya wanted. And she was sure her brother and some of her classmates, Henry Reed, for example, aspired for something more. They had worked so hard and learnt so much to have future and achieve the things they could take pride in. After Donleavy’s speech Maya had a feeling of vacancy and aimlessness for a moment; but then Henry Reed’s speech and the Negro national anthem he started to thing with the others joining in brought her back to life and brought back her confidence, too. She was sure that with determination she would be able to win and gain all she wanted from life, no matter what color her skin was.