On Tuesday, Jerich Marco Alcantara was all set to attend his graduation ceremony at Hunter College’s Brookdale campus. He was pumped to walk across the stage and get his degree from the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, but the goddamn E train let him down in a major way. Multiple delays caused him to miss the entire ceremony, which had to be absolutely infuriating.
Thankfully, some of his fellow subway passengers decided to make lemonade out of lemons for Jerich, as they held an impromptu graduation ceremony for him.
Here’s New York Magazine with more details on Jerich’s bad luck, along with a Facebook video of the very cool gesture.
Alcantara told Select All he had opted out of attending the main graduation ceremony at Radio City Music Hall later that same day because students were only allotted two tickets, and he wanted all of his family and friends — some of whom were on the stopped train with him — in attendance. Opting out also meant that getting to the commencement was that much more important to him.
“I was on track to be at my commencement at 9:15 a.m., but the delays altogether ended up taking almost three hours,” Alcantara said. “After 45 minutes, I knew I was already late, but I kept hoping that I’d at least make it to walking the stage.” He didn’t make it, but thanks to some friends and strangers on the train that day, he still got to experience a formal graduation. Sort of. A friend presented Alcantara with a “diploma” via a cell phone, while somebody else on the train blasted “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day. Another passenger filmed the makeshift ceremony and posted the video to Facebook.
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That was awesome. It’s videos like these that restore my faith in humanity. It’s real easy to be a cynic these days, but watching that graduation ceremony shows that there are still plenty of kind-hearted people out there.
I’m also really glad that they went with “Time of Your Life,” instead of that corny ass “Graduation” song from Vitamin C. That might be the worst one-hit wonder of all-time. I’d rather contract scurvy than hear that trash ever again.
