Cuesta College graduates largest class ever at drive-through ceremony: ‘We can do it’
San Luis Obispo County experienced an afternoon of jubilant celebration as Cuesta College graduates posed for pictures, high-fived and hugged after receiving their degrees in a ceremony Friday afternoon.
The commencement ceremony was held in a drive-through fashion with grads driving through the college’s campus before briefly getting out to walk across the stage to accept their degrees from the school’s superintendent and president, Jill Stearns.
The ceremony, which started at 2 p.m. and ended at 4 p.m., was held at Cuesta College’s campus just north of San Luis Obispo off Highway 1.
The class of 2022 is Cuesta College’s largest ever with 1,646 students. That’s nearly 400 more grads than in 2021.
“Cuesta College’s graduating class of 2022 has so much to be proud of, and I am looking forward to congratulating each of them as they walk across the stage to receive their diploma,” Stearns said in a prepared statement. “Our graduates have endured many obstacles, and their diligence and commitment to success will carry them forward into their bright futures ahead.”
A total of 2,452 degrees were awarded to the grads across the school’s 47 associate and 36 transfer degree programs.
Graduates Pam McConal, 55, and Farren Francisco, 37, said walking across the stage Friday afternoon was a special accomplishment for them.
The two single moms earned liberal arts degrees and maintained good grades while also working full time and taking care of their kids. They decided to pursue the degrees starting in spring 2020 after meeting at a youth water polo game watching their sons play.
Neither of the moms had earned a college degree in the past, so it was a new endeavor for both of them.
“I had taken classes before at other places that I lived, but never finished anything,” McConal said. “And so she (Francisco) decided to do it and we said, ‘We could do this together. We can do it.’ And so we did.”
Francisco said she originally pursued the degree from Cuesta College “to prove to myself that I could,” she said, but that viewpoint slowly changed.
“My son is 18 now, and he had started at Cuesta in the fall,” she said. “It’s now something I can also show him that it doesn’t matter how old you are, or what’s going on in your life: age shouldn’t be a factor to stop you from ever getting your education or whatever it is that your goal is in life.”
Working toward the degree wasn’t necessarily something McConal or Francisco needed to do, as they both have steady jobs. But they found it beneficial in more ways than they’d imagined.
Francisco said the classes she took at Cuesta College were similar to the field in which she works, while McConal said the company she works for recognized that she was dedicated to continuing to learn so they gave her a raise.
Cuesta College’s oldest graduate in the class of 2022, 86-year-old Don Bukowski, said that he attended the school to find a good reason to get out of bed in the morning.
Bukowski, who celebrates his 87th birthday on Sunday, walked across the stage on Friday to earn degrees in history, liberal arts and sociology.
Bukowski noted that the 36 credits accrued from the last time he’d pursued a degree at Golden West College in the early 1970s transferred over to Cuesta College.
Bukowski, who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in July 1957, said he originally went to college to get away from the military. But he didn’t finish his degree at Golden West, instead dropping out at one point to take care of his sick mother.
He then re-enrolled only to drop out again to work.
Nearly 50 years later, Bukowski said, he knew he had to go back to school.
“You should never stop learning,” he said.
Bukowski joins 10 other Cuesta College graduates who are veterans of the armed services. The others represent the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marines Corps, U.S. Army and U.S. Coast Guard.
Cuesta College’s graduating class ranges in age from 17 to Bukowski’s 86 — although he notes that “in my book, that’s just a number, it’s how you feel that matters.”
A total of 841 graduating students came from San Luis Obispo County high schools. Of those, 446 of were recipients of the Promise Scholarship, which provides two fee-free years at Cuesta College.
Nearly 29% of the class of 2022 graduated with honors or high honors by achieving a grade point average of 3.5 or higher, including 31 who earned a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
This story was originally published May 20, 2022 at 5:41 PM.
