The University of California at Los Angeles' 100th graduating class will not be able to celebrate like the 99 classes that came before it.
UCLA announced Thursday that it had canceled this year's commencement ceremony amid the coronavirus outbreak.
"I’m not too concerned about it," Maria Hernandez, a student, said. "I’m okay with just getting my diploma in the mail and calling it a day."
Hernandez is staying positive after learning her commencement will instead be held online in June, which she knows will upset her mom.
"I’m the only one who’s actually stuck to school in my family," Henandez said. "It’s kind of sad because i know that’s what my mom was looking forward to, the big commencement."
"It would definitely be really hard after working my butt off for four years here," Cecilia Porras, a fellow Bruin, said.
Porras wonders why her school doesn't just postpone the ceremony, which is what some other universities like Cal State Northridge and Cal State Long Beach have announced they are doing.
Local
Get Los Angeles's latest local news on crime, entertainment, weather, schools, COVID, cost of living and more. Here's your go-to source for today's LA news.
The freshman Bruin said, "I think that they should see if they can maybe reschedule after because that's a big deal."
It's such a big deal the the hashtag #uclapostpone started trending Wednesday night on Twitter.
One person tweeted, "It’s not just my journey...it’s our families' journeys. We’re not walking the stage just for ourselves."
Another person wrote, "We spent years and thousands of dollars to earn degrees, and our families should be able to see us recognized on something other than a screen."
A change.org petition to urge the school to postpone commencement already had thousands of signatures by Wednesday night.
Hernandez added, "A lot of clubs and stuff like that that do final performances towards the end of the year, now it's not going to happen and many looked forward to that last experience."
