Graduation Day

Yesterday was graduation day. Yes, I know, it took long enough for it to roll around. Now, whilst I didn’t attend myself, I had an inside source planted at the event who I then persuaded to reveal everything. To respect the privacy of this source they shall remain anonymous, but for the sake of clarity, I shall to refer to them as ‘Mark’.

Whilst I have commented on the graduation process before, I shall still do a brief recap. Okay, so instead of doing big giant catch-all graduations, the university does approximately 800 wee tiny little small ones spread out over around two weeks, but none of them are on the weekends. The first one is at about 9am, and the last one in the late afternoon sometime, so as to make sure that no one could possibly attend without taking time off work. If I had taken a day off of work and paid vast sums of money to attend, I would have partaken in a 3:30 pm ceremony involving other post-graduate students from the civil engineering department. Gowns are of course involved, but there are no hats due to health & safety restrictions. Something about throwing them up in the air and taking peoples’ eyes out on the way back down, I think.

Brief side note: I was looking at some websites for tourist venues in Edinburgh today. One site did not allow children under 5 for health & safety reasons; the other had a downloadable risk assessment form for groups to fill out. (Risk: water mains break and building instantly floods. Mitigating measures: all group members wear life jackets).

Each graduate walks across the stage, has an unnaturally long hand shake with some high-up important old man who thus feels obliged to mutter a few words to you, perhaps asking you what your favourite flavour Skittle is, and then you proceed across the stage. Phd students apparently take longer as they are required to kneel and offer a small sacrifice (such as a 2nd year physical therapy student) before they are allowed to proceed.

Afterwards, the department was so nice as to have a champagne reception, allowing graduates and their parents to mingle awkwardly with teachers they haven’t seen for a year. Little sandwiches were also provided. At some point in all of this, you of course also had to return your robe. So someone in one of today’s ceremonies could then reuse it.

The graduation ceremony was attended by a limited number of male full-time students who have parents who live in England. It was also attended by a number of part-time students, which surprised me as I wouldn’t think they would be particularly motivated or really care. Perhaps they just heard about the free little sandwiches?

With the graduation all over and done with, you can say that any remaining ties to the University have officially been severed. Finally!