In ergonomic chairs bearing their university's colors, students sat wide-eyed and eager on graduation day. Partly because someone at the end of the seventh row swiped a handful of pills from her mother's Kate Spade bag, by the time the ceremony began the Anthropology Department was almost as high as their field's unemployment rate. Around them photographers their parents had hired snapped pictures to capture their enraptured expressions. The near-graduates expressed envy for those with divorced parents; they got two photographers and therefore twice the amount of photos to post on Instagram.

A good fraction of the undergrads donned decorated graduation caps bearing phrases like "Thanks, mom and dad!" Joseph Engle said he really wanted his to read, "Thanks, mom and dad, for funding talk therapy when I sank into a paralyzing depression following the release of my second semester grades. I was pledging a fraternity and they made me put my dick in a minigolf hole. It was really hard on me, and you were so understanding." But it didn't fit on the 10" x 10" cap.

Engineering student Anne Lowe chose a more practical design for her cap. She leased the valuable real estate to Under Armour. The company paid $10,000 to display an advertisement to the student body and their loved ones.

Ms. Lowe remarked, "I didn't necessarily want a picture of the new Port Covington headquarters on the back of my head, but the university didn't give me much financial aid this year, and the student loans are really piling up."

Lucy Kelley, who sat a few rows up from Lowe, made a counter-cultural statement with her lack of graduation cap. According to Kelley, the university forced her to buy a cap, but she spent three hours at Corbin Salon this morning while her friends were at brunch, and she'd be damned if the polyester and cardboard monstrosity messed up all she had worked so hard for. Besides, the cap would have distracted from her pre-graduation gift—diamond earrings courtesy of Tiffany & Co. and her college sweetheart, who will leave her exactly 18 months from today.

As the final students settled into their seats, an orchestra played a slightly unsettling rendition of Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes' "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." One of the provosts thought that emphasizing the class of 2017's feigned togetherness might distract them from the looming lack of social gratification that follows living with one's parents at age 22.