We, as members of the graduating class of the New School, class of 2015, and those who support this endeavor, hereby submit our signatures as testimony to our fury regarding the quality of the New School diplomas.

First off, the design of the diplomas is ironically atrocious. They don't look anything like diplomas, contemporary or otherwise. It looks like they were designed in Word, then printed off last-minute and rushed out. The design is overall bad - the font weights don't agree, the spacing is bizarre, and why is it so large? Normally Bachelor's Degrees are 8 1/2 x 11", but for some reason these are 11x14", which is a size normally reserved for Doctorate degrees or PhDs. Which is fine, if you'd like to grant us those...

Secondly, these things really need to be sent out in more durable packaging. My own diploma arrived bent at the corner. (Despite the "Do Not Bend" note - as though this were an adequate protection.) I'm sure there is a way in which this can be solved very easily.

We realize that these complaints might seem unreasonable or of no consequence, but this simple piece of paper is a testament to the four years of blood, sweat, tears, pride, joy, anger, and tremendously hard work that we all contributed to being at Parsons. It's a symbol of our making through what many others could not. A symbol of all the life-changing experiences and accomplishments we have gathered.

I don't want to bring money into this either, but for the tuition we pay, you'd think that such an apparently measely piece of paper could be attended to with a lot more care and dedication. It feels insulting to have dedicated so much time, effort, and money into our education and have the symbol of that education to be worthy of nothing more than a bad critique in one of our classes. It feels like an insult.

Other schools do it better. There's no reason why we can't either.

We, as graduates of the New School, class of 2015, hereby demand newly designed and reprinted diplomas!