The Day Blue Gowns Filled Yonsei University

By late February, the streets around Korean universities look different. Florists set out more bouquets than usual. Students in academic gowns become part of the view. Graduation arrives as a season before it arrives as an event.

Sinchon is no exception. Walk near Yonsei University and you can tell the time of year without checking the date. Families, friends and couples take pictures around campus. Spaces that are usually quiet change for a day.

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A Campus on the Way to Somewhere Else

Living in Yeonhui-dong, I pass through Yonsei more often than I set out to visit it. I cross the campus to get to a bus or the subway, so I tend to notice changes in the university’s schedule before I read about them.

Ordinarily the campus is a quiet place full of students. Commencement itself was on February 27. The season began earlier. Once gowns were available to rent, graduates came over the weekend to take pictures, and the campus became a backdrop even before the ceremony.

I’d come to take a walk. Before long I was taking pictures of graduation.

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Yonsei’s Blue Gowns

Yonsei is one of the universities often grouped under the nickname SKY, along with Seoul National University and Korea University. Korea University is associated with red. Yonsei’s color is blue, and it carries through from cheering sections and campus events to graduation day.

The blue gowns made it easy to see what day it was from a distance. People were taking pictures on Baekyang-ro, near the main building, on the lawn outside Underwood Hall and along the campus paths. All were familiar places. The people in them made them feel different.

The ceremony happens at a set hour, but the pictures go on all day. Someone takes a photograph with their family. Someone laughs with friends. Someone takes one last walk around campus alone. Those hours may stay in the memory as long as the degree ceremony.

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A Memory From Another Walk

Walking there brought an older memory back. I never attended Yonsei, but in 2011 I came to sit a transfer exam. I went along Baekyang-ro as an applicant and took the exam in the General Education Building.

I passed the first round and was turned down in the final selection. I went to a different university. It seems like a small event now, but at the time it felt large.

Watching the graduates, I remembered walking the same path for a different reason. The nervousness I’d felt then and the ease of walking there now belonged to the same campus. It’s remarkable how differently a place can register at another point in your life.

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What Graduation Day Holds

Graduation is the day students leave school and begin to find out what comes next. It’s common to hear how difficult the job market can be. On that day I wanted to leave those questions for a little later.

I could see relief and anticipation together in the faces people made for the camera. They’d reached the end of a long stretch and didn’t yet know exactly what would change.

I didn’t know the graduates, but seeing so many of them around campus made me want to wish them well. I’d stood at a similar beginning once.

For some it was the last day they would come to campus as students. For others the emphasis was on what would start next. The ceremony took only a few hours. The day has stayed with me longer.

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