Two Commencements and a Retirement

My weekend of academic celebration.

Last weekend the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World drove across the state of Massachusetts twice and up to Medford once to attend a variety of academic celebrations. After what has been a… let’s say “challenging” year for higher education, it is worth taking a moment to appreciate a variety of academic achievements in the year of our Lord 2024.

On Friday, my wife and I collected our daughter from College Internship Program, also called CIP — but not before attending their awards ceremony. CIP grants no degrees, but often paves the way for its neurodiverse charges to earn A.B.s at community colleges and B.A.s at four-year universities.

In many ways, however, that is the least important part of what CIP does. They also help their students prepare for the workforce through an array of internships. They provide training to improve social skills and executive functioning. There is also a part of their instruction that I think of as Adulting 101: how to keep a budget, how to keep an apartment clean, how to live with roommates, and so forth.¹ It is an expensive, labor-intensive program. But there is no denying that it pays dividends.