[MUSIC PLAYING]
What a lot of people may not realize
about MIT's commencement is that the students
get their actual diploma as they walk across the stage.
And in order to accomplish that, it's
a very long, labor-intensive process.
It involves a lot of people and a lot of people
taking a lot of pride in the process
and really caring about the end result.
I have an opportunity to talk to many of my peers
in the print industry on college campuses across the country.
And when I talk about the fact that MIT students receive
their actual diploma at graduation, most of them
are astounded.
It's not the way it's generally done.
At MIT, we go through a tremendous process
that ensures graduates get their diploma when they walk off
the stage.
The first step in the process is to order
the stock, and actually, the diploma cases.
The stock has some standards.
It says Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It has some language.
It's missing the vital information
of the name of the graduate, the type of degree, and the date.
And we print them here at MIT in copy tech.
We took over the diploma process in 2010.
At that time, it was a very long, drawn-out process
where the names of the graduating seniors
were done by calligraphers that registrar's office employed.
So throughout the entire process there's
multiple checks on the diploma.
There's 5,000 diplomas, and we go through them
and make sure that they all have the signatures printed on them,
the seal is there, because that's
something that is sometimes missing
and nobody wants a diploma with a missing--
[LAUGHTER]
--seal.
So people actually put a lot of effort into making the diplomas
and having them sorted so it was distributed correctly
to each student.
And when I was filing the application online,
I was actually asked to type down the phonetic pronunciation
of my name so they can pronounce my name correctly
during commencement.
And with that, I think the school actually
cares a lot about us, and they did actually
pronounce my name correctly.
And I really appreciate that.
I think part of what makes MIT such a special place is
the commitment, and the caring of all the people
that work here.
The caring about the students, the caring about the process,
the caring about the details.
Filing diplomas alphabetically isn't, all that interesting
but people are always willing to do it,
always willing to help out, make sure that everything is done
perfect for commencement day.
We deal with the freshmen when he comes in and has
no idea what to do, and then we get
to see them in the joy of having actually finished
the MIT education.
That all is encompassed in that sheet of paper
that they receive, walk off the stage,
and can actually open up and show to their family, friends,
and to themselves that they have graduated from MIT.
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