Wednesday, June 03, 2009

First college graduation ceremony in Second Life:

The college[Bryant & Stratton] will bestow diplomas on Wednesday to about 40 graduates who have earned online degrees. Besides Rosedale's speech, the event will include a virtual procession for students dressed in their digital regalia.

It took a bit over a thousand years to move college graduation from physical to virtual. I wonder, what will be the next step.
Let's see. It  is  quite possible that in the future individualized education will render all graduation ceremonies obsolete. Just to think of it, there's no fundamental reason, besides convenience for university administration, why people have to get their degrees in the beginning of each summer. It would probably be even better for the economy if the education system stopped producing its output in lumps of million+ people at a time. So, rather than having a coming-of-knowledge party associated with a thousand-year-old bureaucratic tradition, the future should have huge world-wide "knowledge download" parties all the time. Furthermore, the only thing that holds back this wonderful idea is the lack of good virtual beer and wine. You just can't have a decent graduation party without the right booze :)

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