to not want to hire a gown and a silly hat to wear for my graduation this summer?

[vinisque]

Just that really. I am in the final year of my fine art degree and have been discussing the snobby tradition of graduates wearing the cap and gown with my fellow students. We were talking about making our own graduation clothing when our tutor told us that we are not allowed to wear our own, we have to hire the university cap and gown. If this is true I will be so annoyed I don't think I will bother going to my own graduation ceremony. Am I being unreasonable?

And I love to look at my PhD graduation photos, I was slimmer, looked ace in the hat, my children have seen them.

I have been to many graduation ceremonies, as a graduand and as an academic. Whilst there are traditionally set gowns, hoods and headwear for the different degrees as different institutions, I have seen students wearing no gowns and students who have obviously hired the wrong gowns and hoods for their particular degree. None of them were prevented from walking across the stage to be awarded their degree.

I'm an academic and I've been to literally dozens of graduations. They are quite boring in the main and your hands hurt by the end from clapping. However seeing "my" students and their families before and after is lovely and both students and parents seem to enjoy the event. There is a strange sadness about seeing a whole class that you have watched growing up over 5 years being together as a whole for the last time. I would say 90% of our students go to graduation. If you turned up without the gown and hood you would not be admitted to the hall, so it would be a futile gesture of rebellion.

Personally, I loved both of my own graduations, especially the first, which was conducted in Latin, which makes me pretentious, but I don't care.

Don't go then - but don't make a fuss about it. have your degree delivered by post. Just don't try and destroy years of tradition and things which other people enjoy (and which won't impact you)

Obviously Hemlock and I have different experiences, where I am the men can get away with not having white bow ties and the women can get away with not wearing strictly black and white, but having the wrong gown and hood would not be allowed. I have never seen that happen. The gown hire takes place in the basement of the hall so I suspect anyone turning up in the wrong kit would be taken down there to sort it out pretty swiftly.

Mrsmorton my university is not elite, think scumbag college rather than Oxbridge.
If I were to make my own clothes for the ceremony, they would look the same. Though I have been toying with the idea of wearing a road cone on my head.

I went to my first graduation and it was the most boring day of my entire life.
I didn't go the second one. I'd rather iron my eyebrows.

I went to mine and it was pretty boring, but it was nice to see my classmates. I graduated in 2011 and I haven't seen any of them since (we're in touch on Facebook but that's it), so it's nice to look back on those old photos.

YABU to not want to go just because you have to wear a cap and gown, though.

My daughter is graduating this year from a fine art course too. She is not bothered about going to her graduation . As her parents we cant wait !!!! Tricky ;-)

I didn't bother going to mine. A load of traditional bollocks if you ask me. I have since had to sit through graduation for work and it's fucking boring so I don't regret it.

I'm an academic, and I actually own my deeply unflattering red-and-blue vaguely Superman's cape-ish doctoral gown, because I go to so many degree ceremonies annually. By the time I got my doctorate, I was thoroughly uninterested in going to the ceremony, but my parents were aghast at the thought of missing it, so I sucked it up.

OP, thank your stars it isn't Oxbridge, where you have to wear full sub fusc (white tie and dark suit for men, black tie, dark skirt/trousers, white blouse for women) as well as the gown, hood and mortarboard. Definitely no deviations allowed, and while the men look rather chic, the women look vaguely like waitresses.

AND you have to wear subfusc plus the appropriate commoner's/exhibitioner's/scholar's gown and mortarboard for exams also, or no admission to exam centre...

Agree that depending on your situation, the graduation ceremony is as much an important celebration for your parents/ family as for you, so if you're seriously considering not going, you might speak to them before you make your decision.

I always planned to attend mine. Yes it was a bit dull, though it was made infinitely better by receiving my certificate from my lifelong crush, Sir Patrick Stewart...

Oxford you also have to wear Subfusc for at least a yearly meeting with the Head of college!

We used to sneer at the US zippy nylon gowns too (lots of Grad students had them).

I graduate this summer and will not be attending the ceremony. I will however be waiting outside and join my uni friends for a piss up afterwards.

NotSo: I don't 'get' graduations. It's like pupil of the week or something for adults and you have to pay for it.

What a ridiculous statement! It's not like "pupil of the week" it's a celebration of three, four or five YEARS of hard work, dedication and effort that you've put into achieving your degree!
Humph.

I've only been to half of my graduations. Can't say I miss them though I will make sure my dc go!

The ceremonies are like a grown up pupil of the week in my opinion, boring assembly, names read out, certificates given the only difference is the Harry Potter costumes.
The achievement is in getting the degree, I don't see that the ceremony adds anything.

I have been browbeaten into going to three of the fucking things. Never again. Dull, dull, dull and expensive.

I think the ones at new universities are particularly daft, getting dressed up for a degree ceremony & institution that didn't exist before the 1960s. Get a degree in cybernetics from York or Warwick, a modern degree at a new university and you receive it dressed like a medieval pimp.

Mind you if you do decide to go, wear the prescribed costume or don't go. Any attempt s to subvert the dress code will just make you look like a tedious wannabe rebel.

at the people saying the ceremonies are boring. A) lots of things in life are boring (going to the dentist, dusting etc) but are done because you or other people get larger benefits from them, and B) what exactly were you expecting? Jay-Z and Beyoncé to be flown in specially for your entertainment on the day? A personalised powerpoint presentation of you on each day of your degree course with glittery balloons attached? Come on. It's a nice, harmless experience. Lots of folk here don't half sound like whingebags.

And OP, if you think you can make a gown that looks convincingly like the 'real' thing, then go for it, why not? But leave the childish moany / traffic cone stuff out of it.

You are so pretentious! More pretentious in fact than any academic dress. It's a formal occasion, and you're required to wear academic dress. If you object to it, don't go, but YABU to think you can go to the ceremony sneering at it and mocking, and spoil it for nother people to whom it might actually mean something. In case you didn't get it, YABU.

ComposHat oh, are the new university grads supposed to know their place, then? While only Oxbridge types get to dress up?

Getting dressed up in something you've made yourself just sounds a bit... try hard and attention seeking, actually.

As a mature student doing the OU in my late forties, when the time comes to wear my gown and go on stage, I shall be very proud ,

I did the hiring and boring ceremony. Felt like an idiot. Wouldn't do it again! YANBU. Save money!

Yes Mellow but you have to dust if you want a clean house and you go to the dentist if you want healthy teeth you don't have to go to graduation to gradute.