Nearly 6,000 students will walk across the stage in the Marriott Center this Thursday as they become official graduates of Brigham Young University. Sixteen hundred of those students graduated in December but are able to walk during April’s graduation ceremony, per BYU tradition. The remaining 4,000 students will have completed their final classes only days prior to walking.
The graduating class is made up of students from 49 states, six territories and 62 foreign countries. Of the degrees being awarded, 4,928 are bachelor’s degrees, 690 are master’s degrees, and 182 are doctoral degrees. The graduating class is 55.3% male and 44.7% female. The average age of students receiving their bachelor degree is 24.9, while the average age of graduate students is 28.0 and the average age of doctoral students is 29.8. The oldest student receiving a bachelor’s degree is 68 years old.
The majority of undergraduate students are graduating from the college of Family, Home, and Social Sciences, with 967 graduates. The Life Science College is second with 948 graduates; the Marriott School of Management comes in third with 812 graduates. The College of Fine Arts and Communications has 555 students graduating, and the College of Engineering and Technology has 428 students graduating. Four hundred thirteen of the undergraduates are receiving their degrees from the College of Humanities. The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences has exactly 300 graduates, and the McKay School of Education has 268. The list ends with the School of Nursing and the department of International and Area Studies, with 121 and 116 graduates, respectively.
The commencement speaker is Elder Craig Allen Cardon, of the First Quorum of the Seventy. Elder Cardon is the assistant executive director in the church Priesthood Department and oversees the publication of church magazines. He received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Arizona State University and an MPA from Harvard. He served a mission in Rome, Italy, and for several years was president of the Africa West Area. He and his college sweetheart, Deborah, have eight children, all married.
