Marcia Ratliff/ Winonan

On Monday, April 14, many of Winona State University’s seniors dragged themselves out of the library or off the couch and crowded the Student Activity Center with one thing on their minds: graduation.

Monday was the Grad Finale, which happens on both Rochester and Winona campuses once each semester.

It’s an opportunity for seniors to get everything set for graduation all in one place: from giving their contact information to the Alumni Society to checking the spelling of their name to buying enough graduation announcements to send to all of their grandmothers.

Heather Kosik, the associate director of Alumni Relations at Winona State, said that’s what the Grad Finale is all about. “They can do everything they need to before the big day,” Kosik said. “Tie up all those loose ends in one spot.”

As a bonus, the bookstore offered 20 percent off of all purchases of graduation-related items during the Grad Finale.

This is what English and global studies double major Michelle Johnson said brought her to the event.

“I heard things were on sale. Cap, gown, tassel thingys,” said Johnson

But Johnson, eying the engraved Winona State picture frames, said she would pass on those. When her sister graduated in 2009, “my parents made their own frame,” Johnson said.

Michelle McCoy was sitting behind the Career Services table. Surrounded by clipboards, pens and mini candy bars, the graduate assistant had the job of asking each senior who stopped by the table whether or not they had a job or further schooling lined up after graduation.

Minnesota State Colleges and Universities requires each member school to have 85 percent of its graduates fill out the follow-up survey, McCoy said. It is a way to hold schools accountable and make sure graduates are doing something. And if they are not, then something can be done about it.

Although the data is important, McCoy said it was a tough question to ask graduates.

“We hate asking, to be honest,” McCoy said, who will graduate this May as well.

And of course, replies varied widely, from grins to grimaces.

The event meant something different for each senior, but many shared a sense of grim realization.

Hannah Nickelson, an English major, said the Grad Finale was, for her, the first sense of an ending to her time at Winona State.

“It’s super surreal,” Nickelson said. “I’ve been completely denying it up until having to buy these things.”

Nickelson said, like many graduates, she does not have a definite plan for life after Winona State.

But is she excited about what’s next?

“Certainly,” she said.