This weekend marks the end of graduation season for most Santa Barbara-area schools. While all the high schools have already graduated their Class of 2008 – a record high number of 1,706 students for the Santa Barbara School District – UCSB is just now gearing up for its own commencement weekend.
With about 4,800 UCSB seniors graduating, students are broken up into eight official ceremonies to take place across campus during the weekend. This year, 40,000 visitors are expected to come watch during the weeklong period that the ceremonies take place. Ceremonies for the College of Creative Studies already occurred on June 8, and The Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management held its ceremony this morning. On Saturday and Sunday, the three ceremonies a day (9am, 1pm, and 4pm) are divided up by field of study, all taking place near UCSB’s lagoon.
Santa Barbara City College’s graduation already took place on May 23, where they awarded over 1,600 degrees and certificates. Westmont College graduated 310 seniors on May 3.