College Graduation

I am a big fan of college. For myself and for others. I have a reasonable amount of experience as the parent of college students, but my eldest child graduated from college recently, and this is a first for me. What does college graduation signify?
I think it meant several things to me, though I did not recognize most of them at the time that it happened. I knew that it was the end of an era--which was fairly short-lived. The 'era' is perhaps better looked at as a phase of development, but I definitely saw it as an era, and look back on it as such. I learned to function independently. Not financially exactly, but personally. I made decisions on my own and dealt with the benefits and consequences myself. I also learned to be an independent adult learner in college--when I want to know something more about somethign, I know how to pursue it. But more importantly, college made me want to continue to learn. It heightened my intellectual curiousity. Graduate school prepared me to make a living, but college prepared to live, and to enjoy my life.
My son graduated from my alma mater 30 years after I did, walking in the exact steps that I did, more or less, and as graduates of the college for the past 243 years have done. I did not feel so much nostalgic as I felt thankful that this phase is completed for him, and he can go on to the next, all the while hoping that he got out of it what he needed to. His dean proclaimed biology majors to be liberally educated, and I sincerely hope she is right.