Did graduating feel surreal to you?

Imo the final half of the year people are working on what to do afterwards and their final exams. I think graduation is more for your parents.

Not graduating this year but anyway, I cba to actually go to my graduation - it's more my parents who care.

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I'm sorry to hear that, because I know really enjoyed myself at my graduation, seeing all my coursemates for the last time. Can I ask why you don't want to go?

I study in London and many of my friend will stick around so it won't be last time I see them. It's incredibly overpriced (though I probably won't pay for it), and as I'll (hopefully) be studying a second degree after, it won't really feel like the end. I understand why people go but at this point it would just be to satisfy my parents.

I won't be graduating for another year, but there is part of me that doesn't want to go. I have no friends on my course, not even in my school. All my friends are in other schools, so I would feel odd clapping for people strangers the entire ceremony.

I've had three graduations thus far and all three of them felt very bizarre because I don't remember doing my degrees So I was graduating from/for something I couldn't remember doing Didn't help that two of the three ceremonies were in Latin either, haha

I'm hoping if I finish my PhD and graduate from it, that I'll remember doing it/have a sense of having done it, so that I can really own the day

3 graduations?! Well congratulations on achieving all those degrees! 😊

See I remember doing my degree, quite vividly for a lot of the stressful parts, but the actual day of my graduation itself was quite the blur. I feel like I might be alone on this, haha. Good luck with the rest of your PhD! What is your thesis on?

One of them is a fake degree, haha (Oxford MA) so it's not quite as impressive as it sounds

Thanks! My thesis is a study of ABBA fans!

Mine was pretty intense last year. Especially as it was the day after Brexit and we got a Dumbledore-esque speech about being stronger united and cheesey stuff like that. We also have a pretty unusual ceremony at St Andrews where you have to kneel and get bopped on the head :P

I think I almost cried. For the first time I was actually really proud of going to my uni, not that it wasn't awesome I'm just not a very sentimental person. My parents were really happy as well. The family pride from the audience was pretty palpable!

I think when a big group of people come together with a single emotion it's quite overwhelming. I felt similarly at the first wedding I went to. I'm looking forward to my second graduation, mostly because I get to wear a velvet bonnet which is the real reason I applied for a PhD

My undergraduate graduation was surreal. Mainly because it was exactly 1 month and 9 days before my mum died of terminal cancer. So a couple of days before graduation, the hospice nurse and my mum asked which I would prefer: for my mum to start an aggressive chemotherapy and likely be unable to attend my graduation, or to attend my graduation (knowing she would miss on out all future events of my life) but delay the chemotherapy for a few days. I obviously chose the first option, to start chemotherapy immediately.

In the end, we went up to my uni city in the morning on graduation day. Changed into robes, took graduation photos and had a meal out in the city. And then, when the other students went in to begin the ceremony, I handed my robes back and we went home. I have social anxiety anyway, wouldn't have enjoyed the ceremony and didn't speak to anyone at all on my course. But I was just worried that my mum would be unwell sitting through it for hours. She would have done it. But I didn't want to. She slept all afternoon and evening so I made the right choice. And I went sparring instead.

So yes. Graduating was surreal.

Masters graduation...was a year later than majority (lol there were about 9 of us altogether) on my course, but nicely ended up with one of my closest coursemates still anyway, as he broke his shoulder and graduated a year late too. I had anorexia and was IP for 5 months of my MSc, so late graduation, but the proudest moment of my life, having got through admission, gone back and completed my course, made progress with the social anxiety and walked across the stage in front of everyone (I started my MSc being terrified of going into the room our seminars were in). So surreal in a much nicer way!

My uni experiences were...not the typical uni life.

I'm reading your guys' stories about graduation and it's quite motivating I've still got until 2019 so bit of time to go...