To not understand graduations?

[notjustanexpat]

I have several degrees. Always attended graduation in person, because family and DP were excited to attend and "see me graduate". I did not hate it but also gained nothing from it, besides getting the physical degree earlier than I would have if it were mailed.

I will also happily attend other people's graduation ceremonies and cheer for them. If it is important to them, of course I will be there to celebrate them!

But I do not get it. Why would anyone want to travel back to their place of study and spend a small fortune, to sit around an overheated hall for 2h just to walk on a stage for less than 30 seconds. Why not go out and have nice local dinner instead, or throw a big local party?

If you're still living where you studied, sure, why not - but most people I know moved away in between finishing the course and the graduation ceremony. I always had to travel and/or pay 1-2 months rent when I could have been elsewhere, actually working.

I get the desire to celebrate getting a degree but the ceremony is just beyond me. I have already graduated. If I don't attend, the degree is still signed - the ceremony is only symbolic!

My PhD graduation will be next year and DH + family are really excited to attend. Travel time, one-way: 3.5h(us), 10h (family). Money: min. £300 for us, probably 4 digits per person for my family.

I am seriously considering to graduate in absentia, have a local party with family after finishing any corrections (all family live in the same place) and have a nice dinner with DH the day the degree comes through.

AIBU?

I was at mine yesterday after hemming and hawing, and I'm glad I went. I agree with the pp that it's as much about acknowledging family support as anything else. Of course the ceremony itself is a bit dull, but how could you begrudge all those proud parents clucking over their offspring?

@Benes i have a PhD. the first PhD in my extended family . it isn’t a big deal for me. it isn’t a big sacrifice - its something i wanted to do, so i worked hard for it and did it. just like my current job.
(btw, most people don’t know i have a PhD - HR knows, and my boss. it does influence my salary a lot though)

@Yabbers
Graduations. Meh. Who needs to celebrate?Birthdays - waste of time, just another day. Same as Christmas. A lot of fuss and bother, waste of money.Don't get me started on weddings. Who needs to do that in front of all their friends. 5 minutes at the registry office, all it needs.🙄 It must be exhausting to suck all the joy out of life.

Gosh, yes. Imagine actually having to find joy through events and experiences that are unique and individual to you & your family, rather than obediently ticking off the conveyor belt of your prescribed, allotted "joyous" life events on the correct calendar dates. #makingmemories #princessforaday

@myself2020 but for the vast majority of people a PhD is a big deal. I'm an academic and all my colleagues have them but we're self aware enough to understand that for most people it involves not only hard work, determination and resilience. That for me is a big deal.

A PhD may not be a big deal in the sense that we don't need to mention it in every conversation, or add the Doctor title in most instances, or even have a big bash with hundreds of guests.
But it is the result of 3-4 years hard work and people should rightly be proud of it.
It's mostly the graduation ceremony that seems irrelevant, particularly because it's often months later, and it's just handing out the diplomas.

For most of us the most important day to celebrate it is the day of the viva, among our peers and colleagues (if there are any). In the lab sciences we tend to work in teams or at least among other people and the PhD is a shared experience. We can develop strong and lasting friendships. We always make a big deal of it. It's rare that anyone attended graduation. It was more for the relatives.

@Lweji I agree. My viva day was HUGE for me. Afterwards I went out with the other postgrads who had been going through it all with me over the previous 3+ years. Pretty much all of us had been through at least one major trauma in that time, so that was a meaningful occasion.

@Benes if it’s important for you, celebrate! but not wanting to celebrate is equally valid. most academic i know were already knee deep in their next research project/work when graduation arrived, so it wasn’t relevant at all for any of us. my PhD one would have been after my viva (masters 3 months after exams). at both times i was already doing something different/working somewhere else

YADDDNBU
I just spent a very hot 90 mins sitting on the stage watching 99 students I don't know, and one I do but who didn't see me, graduate.
My PhD graduation was tiny, less than 30 students I think. That was worth it.

It meant so much to my parents the first time I graduated. I was the first of their children to go to university and get a degree. Dad had just been diagnosed with cancer, and was undergoing treatment - it's so special to have shared that with them.

My second one, unfortunately got cancelled, because of an unscheduled natural disaster. I was a bit gutted about that, because I'd studied part-time throughout my pregnancy and the girls being at school and we were so excited for them to see Mum's graduation, because it had very much been a family effort.

I imagine if you get many multiples of the things, you do get a bit blase about them!

I'm not saying you have to celebratemyself. It was the dismissive 'it's not a big deal' comment I had an issue with. And I say that as an academic myself.

@CollaterlyS1sters don’t take it personally. It just wouldn’t be a big deal to me. I wouldn’t feel anything particular about doing something so routine beyond relief perhaps (not too keen on studying tbh). Half of people I know have one. I would feel a bit weird making a big deal out of something like that. Mind you I also felt weird having people come to my wedding and getting cards when children were born. Don’t celebrate birthdays either. Obviously if it was something special like a noble prize or something I’d go etc (not that that’s ever going to happen!) but not for something a lot of people do.

@benes I have a high threshold for big deal. I’m not saying it’s not good but it’s not remarkable either.

I can understand celebrating viva/equivalents. I’ve always gone out after exams because I am bloody glad they’re done!

Have you done a PhD boggles

I find this whole dismissive attitude to higher education really ignorant. Especially by those who've experienced it. Okay you may have breezed it but for lots of people its a challenge. My MA and PhD were a big deal to me and I'm sure my students feel the same -in fact I know they do as I listen to how challenging they find studying while working/raising a family/dealing with life in general ...

My DH has completed his PhD while getting married, raising a young family and progressing in a full on and stressful job. That is remarkable. To dismiss it as no big deal is insulting.

@BogglesGoggles @CollaterlyS1sters don’t take it personally. It just wouldn’t be a big deal to me. I wouldn’t feel anything particular about doing something so routine beyond relief perhaps (not too keen on studying tbh). Half of people I know have one.

I think you're (a) misreading my posts, and (b) talking bollocks. I've got a PhD, so has my husband, my MIL, and the people I did my PhD with. Two other parents at school that I can think of. At a rough estimate, maybe 1 in 100 of the people I know? And I spent 10 years at university. I think you're talking total balls tbh. I don't believe for one moment either that half the people you know have one, nor that it was just completely 'routine' for them all.

I would feel a bit weird making a big deal out of something like that. Mind you I also felt weird having people come to my wedding and getting cards when children were born.

So you think it's weird to celebrate getting a PhD, but you had people come to your wedding?!!?!??!
Which do you think is more common - getting married, or getting a PhD?

How utterly bizarre. I didn't go to any of my graduations, nor did I have a wedding when I got married, because I have no interest in people spectating on my love life any more than my academic life.

But there is no question at all that getting a PhD is both more difficult and far, far more unusual than getting married.

Let's put some actual numbers on it, shall we? In the last year for which data are available, in the UK 25,020 PhDs were awarded. Out of a population of approx 65 million.

In the same year, the number there were 239,020 marriages between opposite-sex couples (plus many more between same-sex couples).

So - given that each PhD was awarded to one person, whereas each marriage was between two people - that's approximately twenty times more people getting married than getting a doctorate.

And yet you had a wedding that you invited people to, so that apparently isn't 'routine' - but getting a PhD, which only a tiny fraction of the population ever do, is so mundane and 'routine' that it would 'feel weird' to mark the occasion in any way?

What a load of toss.

@Benes Omg did I misread her post - has she not even got a PhD? But she's telling those of us who do that it would be totally 'routine' for her? Fuck me, that's hilarious

I read it as she wouldn't do something so routine and isn't keen on studying.

Unless you work and socialise with academics then I can't believe half of the people you know have a PhD. Outside of work I know 3 people who have doctorates.

Funny, because on another thread she claims to be 'studying at the moment'. Presumably for something more esoteric than a PhD.

No one - probably not even full-time lifelong lecturers with little life outside the university - has a social circle of whom half have doctorates. She's talking total bullshit. I suspect it comes from a place of insecurity.

Imagine thinking you'd invite people to watch you get married, which half a million people do per year in this country, but that it would be 'weird' to celebrate something that 25,000 people achieve each year!

One advantage of going through the mill to get a PhD is that it means you can actually, you know, source data for the things you say in public forums, rather than just saying what you "reckon" and then running away when someone calls you out on it.

YANBU. I didnt show up at my BSc graduation. I got the highest mark in my year and won an award, but there's no way I'm paying £50 to hire a cape and a silly hat for an hour and then having to curtsey at some dude in front of thousands of people. I found the pomp a bit intimidating and it isn't for everyone. I was also broke and felt it wasn't money well spent. No regrets years later.

Op I don't like them either. Didn't go to my first one- had moved abroad. Did go my masters graduation but literally walked in and back out again- had a sick dc at home. Had planned to go to my phd one but not after I heard the price, plus would involve travel. Received my certificate last year so literally no point in going - just to shake a randomers hand! Dh and I are going to go out for a nice meal on the day it will be on.

Oh and we celebrated after our vivas! That was more meaningful.

@CollaterlyS1sters I meant people I know socially not people I meet in passing because I don’t actually know what degrees most of them do or don’t have. We wanted to just get married but my MIL wanted a wedding so we had to do one which was kind of annoying. Suffered through it for her sake. It was a small wedding but it had the same awkward mix of people you get at graduation ceremonies and just wasn’t at all pleasant. Would not do it again (wouldn’t need to, that marriage was for the sake of a visa and the having of children). To be fair I do understand weddings to an extent in that some of them are just really nice parties. But exceptionally. Graduation ceremonies on the other hand are always horrid.

And I meant routine as in routine in human experience as opposed to routine for that person (I don’t think I actually know anyone who has done two). I am very very low key though. The only things I make a big deal out of is when someone who is actually very very important to me dies before they should do or a big achievement like Nobel prize, booker prize etc. And children’s birthdays-more fun.

@Benes no, too young. I can’t really do one before I retire anyway unless. Or maybe when children finish studying I suppose (not that I plan on going part time when we don’t need the money but hypothetically).

Half my social circle are university lectures/retired university lecturers. They all know each other. I’m studying law (not right now obviously) but part way through a law degree. Obviously won’t be following up that one with a PhD in law!

YANBU. I graduated in absentia because my employer needed evidence of my doctorate. The only regret is that the certificates issued in absentia aren't in the fancy font that you get if you attend in person. But seeing as I have no idea where the certificate is now, I appear to have gotten over it.

@BogglesGoggles I meant people I know socially not people I meet in passing because I don’t actually know what degrees most of them do or don’t have.

Really. Half of the people you know socially have PhDs. Uh huh. Astonishing.

We wanted to just get married but my MIL wanted a wedding so we had to do one which was kind of annoying.

How awful for you that you are so completely under the thumb of your MIL that you had to have a whole wedding just because she wanted to. She must be an extremely violent and dangerous woman.

Suffered through it for her sake.

You poor love.

And I meant routine as in routine in human experience as opposed to routine for that person (I don’t think I actually know anyone who has done two).

So when you said -

"I wouldn’t feel anything particular about doing something so routine beyond relief perhaps (not too keen on studying tbh). Half of people I know have one. I would feel a bit weird making a big deal out of something like that."

-what you meant was 'routine in human experience as opposed to routine for that person'. Whatever that might mean. (Fucked if I know; it sounds like a load of backtracking, meaningless , obfuscating gibberish to me.)

I am very very low key though. The only things I make a big deal out of is when someone who is actually very very important to me dies before they should do or a big achievement like Nobel prize, booker prize etc. And children’s birthdays-more fun.

And your marriage. Oh sorry - I forgot - you were literally held at gunpoint and 'suffered' all the way through it. You poor thing.

@Benes no, too young.

You're 'too young' to have a PhD? What are you, 16?

I can’t really do one before I retire anyway unless. Or maybe when children finish studying I suppose

But I thought it was so 'routine' and so 'not a big deal' that pretty much everyone you know has one?

Apparently, far from being a piece of piss and so routine that it's embarrassing to even mention it, it's now such a big deal that it's literally impossible for you to do one while having children?

Even though loads of people on this thread - and presumably quite a few of the 50% of your social circle who have a PhD - managed to do it while also looking after young children?

I'm confused.