Concept of Graduation – We explain what a graduation is when it refers to a measurement or control and when it refers to a goal or rank achieved.
What is a graduation?
The word graduation can be understood as the action of giving something or someone the degree they deserve or merit. But this definition must be understood in a specific context to make full sense, and that context usually distinguishes between two main meanings:
To control, determine, or formalize the quality or proportion of something in relation to a pre-established standard or criterion. For example, when we talk about regulating the flow of water in a pipe, we mean limiting, moderating, or fine-tuning the flow of the liquid so that it doesn’t spurt or drip.
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To assign someone a level, rank, or position within a pre-established system based on their performance. For example, when we talk about the graduation ceremony for university students, we are referring to the day on which they will formally receive their professional degrees and publicly recognize their successful completion of training in a field of human knowledge.
As we can see, in both cases, it involves assigning something a place within a system, that is, determining its degree. This last word, from which “graduate” is derived, comes from the Latin gradus, a word that can be translated as “rung” or “step,” and conveys the idea that to graduate is to take a step along a predetermined path. Similarly, the verb “to degrade” means “to lower the degree of something.”
Therefore, the main uses of the word “graduation” in everyday life have to do with:
Reaching the end of an academic degree and receiving a degree that certifies the knowledge acquired. For example: “Miguel graduated as a lawyer” (i.e., he obtained his law degree) or “Tomorrow is the graduation of the master’s degree in finance” (tomorrow an academic authority will award us our master’s degree in finance).
Determining military ranks, i.e., the formal hierarchy that can be achieved within the military institution, such as captain, colonel, general, among others. For example: “Estevez was graduated as a captain” (he was granted the rank of captain) or, conversely, “López was demoted for misconduct” (i.e., his rank was lowered).
Determining the proportion of a substance within a mixture, such as the alcohol level in alcoholic beverages or the purity level of a chemical substance. Thus, when we say that a beer has 6% alcohol, we are saying that the mixture it is made of contains 6% ethyl alcohol. The same applies to breathalyzer tests: drivers’ blood alcohol levels are measured to ensure they do not exceed the accepted safe limit for driving.
Determining the average difficulty of a sporting activity or athletic challenge is based on a scale that considers the effort required to complete it and translates this into some kind of indicator. For example, in the sport of climbing, there is a difficulty grading system that assigns numbers to the increasing complexity of the mountains.
These systems can vary from country to country: the French system starts from 1 (very easy) and ascends to 10 (extremely difficult and risky), adding a letter (a, b, or c) to establish distinctions of difficulty within a single step; While the Australian system grades difficulty starting at 1 and ascending to infinity, with 34 being the highest grade achieved.
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References
All the information we offer is supported by authoritative and up-to-date bibliographic sources, ensuring reliable content in line with our editorial principles.
- Graduation (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.
- Graduation Ceremony on Wikipedia.
- Graduar, licenciar in the Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- Etymology of Graduar in the Online Spanish Etymological Dictionary.
- Graduation – Concept, In education, military, sports, and more.
