Yesterday, 1st. December, 2008, the wife and I attended Dekna's, our daughter's, convocation at the UiTM main campus in Shah Alam.
I wrote on 6th. June this year about our daughter, who is our fourth and youngest child and only girl.
So yesterday was the second convocation at the same campus for her. The first one was for her Diploma in Public Administration. This time it was a law degree. God willing there would be a third one next year - her second law degree. Not bad for our little girl !
After form 5, she qualified for matriculation. That meant 1 year and then, successful, the university. She had chosen law even then. So I chose the diploma route for her. That meant 2 extra years. But I thought it would be a good basis for the legal studies. She consented to my choice.
She got the Diploma in September 2005. She received the VC Award in the process, for excellence. Her degree yesterday was a Bachelor of Legal Studies with First Class Honours and the prize for the Best Academic Result for the Course. Now she's into the second and last semester of her LLB (Honours) degree course. So hopefully it'll be a double degree in law for her.
As I wrote in an earlier posting, as an incentive I had wanted to upgrade the second-hand car I bought her for getting the VC Award in 2005, if she got a First Class Honours for her BLS. However in December 2007, suscpecting a good result from what I had heard, I "downgraded" the incentive to RM3,000 cash for a First Class Honours, plus another RM500 if she got the Best Student Prize.
Yesterday I was RM3,500 poorer. Without the "downgrade" it would have been worse.
The invitation for the convocation stated that parents wouldn't be seated in the same hall for the ceremony because of the large number of graduates. However the earlier arrivals were allowed in, and we were among them, fortunately.
At the end of the long ceremony the VC gave his closing speech, and without notes, I might add. I have given a few public speeches in my day, but never without notes, so I was impressed.
What the VC didn't highlight enough, though, was the fact that the real congratulations should have been for the parents and guardians. The students were the ones who studied and sat for the examinations, of course. But it's the parents and guardians who scrimped and saved and cajoled and urged the students to study hard and succeed. Many went with less, many went without, so the children could do well in school and later in university.
For my part, I'm proud the wife and I have been able to raise our kids well enough to see all four of them graduate from university. Now that we already have three grandchildren from our first two sons, I hope my children will see that their children get the same support in their own education.
I prostrate and say "all praise to Allah".
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