As graduating seniors pick up their caps and gowns and withstand lines as long as Disney in summer, and the embarrassment of having a cashier tell you in front of everyone that you aren’t eligible for honors—one student has adapted an entirely new strategy.
Marcus Laissie, 22, is a graduating English major who decided he didn’t have time for all the chaos and hiked up prices at the bookstore. After asking a friend who actually tried in their classes and had a good GPA what color the honors cords were, Laissie decided to just order the same ones online.
“It’s not like anyone’s going to be able to tell my cords aren’t the same as the $75 ones everyone else has,”
Laissie said, who also figured the cap and gown from his high school graduation would work fine for this one, albeit being a little small now.
“In fact, UF probably just orders the same ones in bulk and we’re all getting ripped off right now.”
Although Laissie doesn’t exactly have the GPA required to graduate Summa Cum Laude (or Magna Cum Laude, or Cum Laude for that matter). He still feels that he deserves to walk across the stage with the traditional symbol of honor next week.
“Maybe I didn’t study as hard as other people, and ok, maybe I had to drop stats because I slept through most of the lectures—but I still accomplished a lot.”
Laissie said, whose stats professor confirmed that during one of the exams he came across Marcus drooling on his bluebook.
“I put up with my roommate’s weird cooking smells, I ate only Gator Dining food for my first two years, and I paid every single one of my 13 parking tickets. I deserve this!”
Laissie’s friend, Anthony Valdez, who actually put in the effort to collect all three of his cords this week, said that he actually doesn’t have a problem with his friend taking the shortcut to get the cords.
“The only reason I even got honors is because I spent roughly $900 on tutoring sessions over the past four years. So I think $12 on an Ebay purchase honestly seems like a pretty fair trade.”
