The Story behind Graduation Cap and Gown
Nowadays, every student who attends the graduation ceremony will wear the graduation cap & gown so as to officially graduate from the school. These students will then go up to the stage when their names are being called so as to collect their important paper certificates. The graduation cap & gown actually signify the meaning of achievement and one’s pride as each student has successfully managed to pass all subjects and be able to graduate from the school through hard work and perseverance. This following article will elaborate the story behind graduation caps and gowns.
The current graduation gowns have different colors, so as to differentiate between the different fields of study available in the school. Up to the year 1950, the standard color for robes was gray for schools in the United States. During that following year, there were demands from students to have different colors for their robes. These different colors would then represent the different grades and different course subjects available within each school. This culture has since from then passed on till now. That is why now our graduation gowns have different colors.
The graduation caps that students wear during graduation ceremonies also have history that dated way back to the past. It was believed that this practice of wearing hoods took place when the Celtic groups existed. Throughout this period, Druid priests were seen wearing robes together with hoods in churches. During this period of time, these priests were being viewed by people as role models as they guided the common people to enlightenment. The robes together with the hoods that were worn by the priests reflect the priests’ intelligence as well as their high status rank among the people. As a result, students who studied in churches during that time were influenced by what the priests wore, and thus, they followed what the priests wore. As time goes by, this practice of wearing hood and robe is being passed down and slowly transformed into the practice of wearing graduation cap & gown, of what each student wears during one’s graduation day.
For many of the graduation ceremonies across borders, they require each student to be dressed in his or her own graduation cap & gown, in order to participate in this meaningful occasion. Schools of today have tassels attached to the top of the graduation caps. These tassels are often in different colors and are being used to reflect the different degrees certificates being awarded to the students. For some schools, they may standardize the color for both the graduation caps and gowns, and have different colors of the tassels on the caps to reflect the various subject fields. For other schools, they may have different colors for all the graduation caps, gowns and tassels to signify the different course subjects. No matter what are the colors for these clothing, it is very important for one to know that the practice of wearing the graduation cap & gown is closely associated with the past.
