Did You Graduate?

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i never found the time.

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,1456,1535775,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704

fairly silly article.

― N_RQ, Monday, 25 July 2005 10:41 (twenty years ago)

I got my certificate in the post.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 25 July 2005 10:42 (twenty years ago)

apparently i'm not allowed that. i *have* to do a ceremony. it's been four years!

― N_RQ, Monday, 25 July 2005 10:44 (twenty years ago)

I now feel faintly smug for never finishing...

― Rum, Sodomy and the LAN (kate), Monday, 25 July 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

i graduated, and (hopefully) will do again! I really enjoyed it, the silly sense of occasion. lots of people been graduated recently and it made me nostalgic. Its only one day, and im never quite sure why people are so triumphant about not going to their graduations. I would say about 1/3 of people i know who went to univeristy didnt attend the day, and they are really proud of it! it sort of feels like not going is "sticking it to the man" or something like that. I mean i guess it doesn't matter, but I kind of feel like a mug for going, and enjoying it! to me, after 3/4/whatever yrs of working yr butt off, one day to acknowledge that you have achieved something ,which in fact you have, its a considerable achievement i think, is a fitting end.

I guess this article is proving that the main reason npot to graduate is financial, but you can "graduate on a budget" eg: dont get official photos ( i didnt) - you can get someone to take a photo of you in the get up anywherem, not holding a toilet roll painted white, dont go to expensive receptions (i didnt), dont go to anything in fact that costs extra (videos, strawberries and cream). a graduation ball....well i went to something, but it wasnt a ball, it was just the cheesy club thing. this article is silly becasue its essentially saying "universities are run like businesses! argh!" with the subtext "education should be free argh burn the thatcherites"

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 25 July 2005 10:58 (twenty years ago)

use a credit card, y'know, if you have to. i hate all the gowns and shit.

― N_RQ, Monday, 25 July 2005 11:04 (twenty years ago)

what ambrose said. i really enjoyed my graduation for exactly the same reasons, and i did feel like it was a shame that people who had done a lot better than i did at university didn't bother attending. that said, for gown and mortar board hire it was about £30-£40 and I wore the get up for possibly an hour and a half all together. So yeh, rip off but I guess it depends on which uni you went to.

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

I dropped out of university twice thus avoiding graduation costs.

― leigh (leigh), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

When I finished uni I graduated "In Absentia". I really objected to the expense of it all, as I had worked out that for me+guest it would have set me back a fair few hundred pounds for graduation/ball etc etc, which was not something I could afford.

― Craig Gilchrist (Craig Gilchrist), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:23 (twenty years ago)

yup, and it cost fuck all: like ambrose says, don't worry about the stupid trimmings and you'll save yourself a fortune. my dad took my graduation photograph (outside the mcewan hall in edinburgh), and it's better than any official one could ever be: principally because it looks natural and has a sense of time and place, rather than being some tedious studio shot.

i don't remember my gown costing very much at all. and i borrowed the white bow tie from a friend.

as for the graduation ball: fuck that! i don't think i know a single person who went. if they did, they certainly haven't regaled me with stories of what i missed ;)

the ceremony itself was fucking tedious, though: i do remember that.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:27 (twenty years ago)

I did it for my parents. The photograph was terrible.

Now I work at a university and make a point of always helping out at graduations because it makes me smiley. Everyone is so happy and I like laughing at the girls tripping down the steps in their high shoes and watching out for the person who always walks round the wrong way. Also, the students here get doffed, which is funny.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:30 (twenty years ago)

ALSO I have led the procession for the last two years and my hood is unusually furry so everyone with boring satin ones oohs and aahs at me.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:31 (twenty years ago)

And I like to wear high shoes and imagine they might pick me out as some kind of sexy prof when they get their overpriced DVDs home, even though I am a boring admin flunky.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:32 (twenty years ago)

I graduated from Edinburgh University where the graduation ceremony involves being boinked on the head by John Knox's britches. The britches are in fact a rag held between two cushions and probably have nothing to do with John Knox. Because of the head-boinking, we didn't get to wear mortarboards.

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:38 (twenty years ago)

It wasn't the expense at all for me. I'd been to my wife's previously, and although I was proud of her for the four seconds she was on stage, I was sitting feeling very bored for about three hours around that. It's a ridiculous self-congratulatory affair, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

i went for my parents, although i ended up being really glad that i did - it was all fun, and only one person in my college didn't go in the end. it was also pretty cheap - about £30 on gown hire was the only expense i can think of. i didn't go to my "MA" graduation, or my phd one though.

― toby (tsg20), Monday, 25 July 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

the graduation party etc i dunno cos in france we don't do that.
but i really don't understand the part about expenses to find a job !? i've never spent anything like that to find a job after i graduate ! maybe a few stamps. and not even as i sent all my resumes by e-mail !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:02 (twenty years ago)

I don't think we have this custom in Belgium. But I don't know, cause I dropped out of university after two years.

― nathalie's body's designed for two (stevie nixed), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:09 (twenty years ago)

I graduated from Edinburgh University where the graduation ceremony involves being boinked on the head by John Knox's britches

o yeh! i'd forgotten about that. very underwhelming, being bashed on the bonce with john knox's kex.

when did you graduate, beanz?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:12 (twenty years ago)

2000, you?

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:15 (twenty years ago)

The average spend during a job hunt is £835, including £445 spent on courses and training

by that token, you might as well say the £1000s spent at uni are part of the 'job hunt'.

― N_RQ, Monday, 25 July 2005 12:18 (twenty years ago)

i graduated. gown hire cost me about $120AUD. it was kinda worth it for my mum and dad to be able to come and watch it though as i'm the first in my family to get a uni degree so they were excited. doubt i'll go to the ceremony for my second degree though, once was enough. talk about a dull evening! i don't recall the 'job hunt' (for a 'real' job as i was already running a pub at that stage) costing me anything in particular - i guess about $400 on a suit, but then i wore the suit to work once i got the job so that is cancelled out in a way.

― gem (trisk), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

I think the person who wrote that article is a summer trainee !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

i blame my mum for me not graduating: she's been hassling me about it from the get-go. this makes me not want to do it.

― N_RQ, Monday, 25 July 2005 12:22 (twenty years ago)

2000, you?

1997. god, i'm starting to feel old.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

ede and r@venscroft (the gown hire mafia) MUST BE STOPPED. they ae to blam for paying 40 quid for mouldy moth eaten gowns and shit hats, that seem to be worth about 2 quid and have been adorning students for an average of 30 yrs.

re: self congratulary. I guess so, it depends how generous you are feeling i suppose. its like an award ceremony, i guess the reason think they are a fucking wastee of time and graduation isnt is that i think to pass a degree is a bigger achievement than selling a bunch of records or whatever.

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 25 July 2005 12:37 (twenty years ago)

I just wore jeans and a shirt for my masters graduation ceremony. I think the day cost me the price of a travelcard. Seriously, you don't need to be doing that gown-shit, it's only purpose is the amusement of friends and family.

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 25 July 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

we didn't have to hire gowns. i barely remember the ceremony, though, as we had stayed up all night drinking so i passed out with my chin on my chest as soon as i was seated.

― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 25 July 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

I got together with the mister at my post-grad ball, so something good came of it (we didn't go to the ceremony, but figured we might as well go and drink some end-of-course booze with fellow students).

I did the full gown/photo/video larks at Glasgow Uni when I did my undergraduate degree - having been the first (and so far only) member of my family ever to go to University, I couldn't do the parents out of an excuse to coo at their daughter doing something "important" for once. But it was excessively dull, though my mum did sit next to Hannah Gordon during the ceremony, which seemed to cheer her up more than the fact that her daughter had just graduated. I didn't attend any ball for that one, I don't even know if there was one.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 25 July 2005 15:57 (twenty years ago)

i graduated, but didnt attend graduation ceremony (in college at least, i did for high school). the reason i didnt attend is that i felt pretty disconnected from my school and also, nobody in my family was really keen on going

― Homosexual II (Homosexual II), Monday, 25 July 2005 16:06 (twenty years ago)

Aberdeen Uni were quite reasonable about it. We had to hire gowns but there were no white bow ties or anything. My folks had a grand time by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Punk rock! We all stood but hardly anyone sang. It was quite exciting really. The rector bonked us on the head with a scroll of some sort and we had to move the tassle on our mortar boards to the opposite side to indicate we'd graduated.
My folks paid for photos, which are a bit cheesy but it's nice for them to have. MY pal was also working freelance that day snapping people in the Marischal quad, so we got some nice natural ones from him.
Went to the graduation ball, which was about £30. Rubber chicken and that, but decent enough fun. I won a bottle of Jamesons, which was a bonus, but I failed to pull this hott girl (or rather I didn't try) which I regret a little. And I lost my camera which meant my photos of the night were gone.
I didn't go to my PG Dip graduation. Strathclyde didn't send us any info and none of my pals were going anyway cos it was months after the end of the course. Doubt I missed much.

― Stew (stew s), Monday, 25 July 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

I didn't bother with mine. I don't actually physically have a degree either, I assume it's still lying round the office somewhere.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Avoidant (Ferg), Monday, 25 July 2005 16:20 (twenty years ago)

I went - I borrowed someone else's gown from a prior year & then ordered a pizza to celebrate. The speaker was interesting, but really, I just couldn't wait to get out of there to go get drunk and eat that goddamned pizza.

― geyser muffler and a quarter (Dave225), Monday, 25 July 2005 16:21 (twenty years ago)

Bloody hell - I ALSO graduated from Edinburgh in 2000!

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 25 July 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

I think it only cost me about $40 to graduate (for the gown/mortarboard). It was worth it. My family enjoyed yelling and cheering when my name was called and at the after graduation (the general one, not the college-based one where I was given my degree) dan rather spoke and there were fireworks and my friends and I passed around a flask. it was fun!

― Miss Misery (thatgirl), Monday, 25 July 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

i went to my graduation, but i didn't care. i just wanted to get the hell out of there. in retrospect, the highlight of my graduation was all the photos my parents took where i look the hottest i've ever looked!

i had a boyfriend at that time. i asked him to come up for my graduation and he was like "why? you don't even want to go!" and i was all "er, yeah, but that's not the point." he still didn't go. loser.

― not gettin' hassled, not gettin' hustled (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

i also remember that over graduation weekend no one was around at the radio station so i hung around there and did fill-in slots for everyone. i don't think i got any sleep before the ceremony because i was up doing radio all night.

― not gettin' hassled, not gettin' hustled (Jody Beth Rosen), Monday, 25 July 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

Oh, I've just remembered my graduation ball. We smoked cigars and i totally failed to pull the guy I'd had a crush on all term, even though he came rushing up to tell me how nice I looked. Doh. He was welsh.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 July 2005 05:46 (twenty years ago)

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