Energy and excitement commanded the Saturday night 2025 graduation commencement ceremony honoring the college of business. It was the second ceremony of the day for the college of behavioral and social sciences.
Graduates, parents, friends, instructors and community members gathered at University Stadium to partake in the fifth out of six commencement ceremonies for the class of 2025.
For graduates, excitement grew as they lined up in the field adjacent to the stadium and as they marched onto the field behind banners of red to cheers from their family, friends and supporters. The two colleges battled to show their excitement, something that Perez instigated when he called on each individual college’s graduates to scream as loud as possible.
Graduate Raul Dalal, marketing major, plans to use his degree to help his father grow his online fabric business by using the marketing skills he learned at Chico State to take the business to more places.
“Right now he’s just going through word of mouth. I think it could really be bigger than that.” Dalal said.
Graduate Tara Martinez, business administration major with a focus on human resources, said Chico was too slow paced for her. Martinez grew up in Roseville and intends to move to the Sacramento area after graduation. Currently, she has a job as a teller, but is hoping to find a job in administration in the next three years.
“It’s gonna be hard. It’s not gonna be fun. You have to power through it anyways, you gotta see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’ll all be worth it in the end and then you’ll never have to do it again.” Martinez said.
Graduate Susett Mendoza, describes herself as “very friendly, very playful, very active, and very understanding of people.” This is why she wants to move into a career where she works with children. Mendoza studied social science with an emphasis on child development.
Mendoza didn’t always know she wanted to work with kids, she attended three different universities and switched her major twice. She also attended school online, something that helped her obtain her degree while raising three kids.
Graduate Basil D’angelo, studied political science with an emphasis on legal studies and is set on becoming a paralegal. D’angelo is moving to Davis, where he already has a job lined up. But D’angelo shared that he was going to miss the community he has built here, from the backpacking trips to the climbing trips.
As the sun set, the college of behavioral health and social sciences graduates finished receiving their diplomas, Perez took a moment to congratulate them and then welcomed the graduating class from the college of business.
Meghan Murphy, political science graduate and the first student speaker, asked students to charge into the world, and be themselves, “be you, be kind, be brave.” She said the skills they have learned here will carry on and that “our own success can be measured by how we treat others, and ourselves.”
The second student commencement speaker for the college of business, Rishika Tyahi, spoke to the individual story that each person was creating. The story that led them to be at Chico State, the story that carried them to graduation and the story that they will write into the future. But the commonality, she insisted, was that everyone had their time here at Chico, and everyone will always be a Wildcat.
Chris Hutton can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected]
