Confetti, champagne, and teary goodbyes: it must be graduation szn!

If you're getting ready to graduate from high school, college, or graduate school: Congratulations! It's time to celebrate your success and achievement at an important life milestone. With black gowns, parties, confetti, dressed-up families, and stage time, graduation also has lots of photo opportunities, so it's an exciting time to create a video from your aesthetic moments and memories.

In this article, I'll give you some ideas about how you can craft an amazing graduation TikTok for this year's graduation season. You can publish your video on Reels or YouTube Shorts too.

Graduation Video Ideas

Before you accept your diploma, you'll want to think about some concepts for your TikTok. Here are some popular ways that graduates create videos:

Standard video montage

Shoot POV videos of your graduation day and ask your relatives to capture vertical videos in the stands. Your siblings or family can help to record you so that they can capture the full cap and gown, especially if you're not allowed to have your phone in the stands. Some key moments that you could film are getting ready with your friends, the handshake and receiving your diploma, senior dinner, award ceremonies, shoutouts from teachers, hugs with your family, walking past favorite spots on campus, or personal reflections on the school experience.

Once you've filmed these moments, gather them together and pick your favorites for a montage video. You can combine all of the footage using a video editor like Kapwing and choose a catchy song to time the transitions to. Use a 9:16 aspect ratio to ensure that it's the right size for TikTok.

Incorporating your parents and family: Graduation is a proud moment for mom and dad! Share the joy of your academic accomplishment with them by getting videos showing them your diploma, seeing their reactions, and asking them to give you life advice. Graduation TikToks also often include emotional moments with kids, grandparents, and other relatives.

💡Remember that day time or well-lit videos look better on TikTok. Consider the lighting of your shot when filming.

Incorporating your classmates and friends: School is a place where you make lifelong friends and memories, so your graduation video might include your classmates. Try shooting group pictures in your robes to incorporate in the video. Some creators leverage fun transitions to show their friends in normal clothes, then in the grad robes. Of course, make sure that you have permission from your friends before publishing footage of them online!

Choosing a graduation song. On TikTok and Reels, the audio is just as important as the visuals for putting your clip on the FYP. Grads can try using a graduation-related bop for their soundtrack. For example, "Bang Bang" by Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, and Jessie J (with the line "Let me show you how to graduate"), Said by Nasty C & Rundown, and Drake's "WE MADE IT" are popular choices.

The hat toss 🎓. It's a time-honored tradition for graduates to toss their black caps in the air, in unison, as the graduation ceremony comes to a close. Some schools prohibit hat throwing, but the students go for it anyway. As the speeches start to wrap up, consider pulling out your phone to film the class hat toss and time it out to the music, like this video by @cecifiuza.

Humor: There's a lot about graduation that's funny, and things often wrong amidst many formalities and ceremonies. Do something crazy as you walk across the stage to accept your diploma, or film your pranks, hijinks, and ridiculous quotes. We've seen TikTokers recording people sleeping in the audience and doing dances on stage, for example.

Transformation: Graduation can be a time to reminisce on your school journey and show your glow-up over time. Consider using photos from your youth or first-day-of-school portraits. Some TikTok creators add details about overcoming the odds or challenges that they faced in the past. These can demonstrate change and growth, making the accomplishment of graduation even more special.

When you publish your graduation TikTok, use relevant hashtags like #Grad2024, #GradWalk, and #ClassOf2024 for better visibility.

Graduation is a precious moment for any student who has put a lot of work into their studies. From convocation to celebratory dinners, graduation is full of emotional memories that will be savored for years to come. We hope that this article has given you some ideas for how you can capture the joy and share it with your friends and relatives too.