my Tudor bonnet and graduation shoes

My Tudor bonnet brings all the cred to the yard

At my PhD I worked so hard

Wherever I lay my hat that’s my home

Its soft black velvet quells imposter syndrome

The PhD is seemingly never ending. Its end is emotional. Completion and post-PhDness is identity-bendingly confusing. And in Australia, with no viva or oral defense, there’s no clear end to the PhD. No full stop. Certainly no celebratory exclamation mark. I’ve reflected that my PhD ended with a whimper, not a bang.

So, while I have tended to avoid graduation in the past (only thus far attending my Grad. Dip. Ed. ceremony because my mum was graduating from her PhD that same night), the messiness of post-PhD identity wrangling, combined with an inner desire for a rite of passage or moment of celebration, drew me to attending my PhD graduation ceremony. While I have enjoyed some other milestones – submitting the finished thesis, having thesis amendments signed off, having the published thesis book in my hands, being conferred with the doctorate and getting the doctor title – a university graduation ceremony seemed to offer the acknowledgement and closure I felt I was missing. It was the last PhD milestone. The final carved stone obelisk at the end of one road and the beginning of another.

how I felt attending my graduation ceremony (5 months after conferment of my degree)

Graduation didn’t disappoint.

It was a great reason to design and purchase some graduation shoes, but also to procure a Tudor bonnet, age-old symbol of the doctorate. With its stiff round brim, silken tassels and floppy (impossibly-soft!) velvet top, this hat is at once unflattering, medievally ridiculous, and a long-standing symbol of scholarship. The red satin facings on the front and sleeves of the academic gown (which is burgundy at my university), and the accompanying Cambridge hood, represent the doctoral degree. Altogether it is quite the ensemble.

It was a lovely ceremony that allowed PhD graduates to feel acknowledged and respected for their achievements. We processed in past the seated audience, leading in the academic faculty procession, and were the first of the night to receive our degrees. Each of us was introduced, with our name and a blurb about our thesis (its title and description), at which point we walked across the stage to be personally congratulated by the Chancellor and to receive our degree. We were then invited up onto the stage to sit behind the Chancellor, professors and other academic faculty, a gesture welcoming doctoral graduates into the community of scholars.

Graduation was a wonderful opportunity to bring together some of the people who had been supportive during the PhD. It was an excuse to share this ritualistic formality with family and friends. As PhD graduates, we and our guests had VIP tickets that allowed us to mix with other PhDs, their families, their supervisors (including mine; I’m her 24^th PhD completion), the faculty and distinguished guests, in a private room beforehand. There were more drinks and refreshments following the ceremony.

I can highly recommend attending your PhD graduation. After a journey that is often isolating, long and difficult, without a clear end, the ceremony was special, memorable and about coming together with your favourite people (and an applauding auditorium).

I now feel more able to rock those robes, not just with a saucy dash of red lipstick, but in terms of owning the achievement and assuming-subsuming-becoming the doctoral identity. I’m more ready to continue to move on from the PhD into The Next, The Beyond and The As-Yet-Unimagined-Faraway.

#graduationselfie #rockyourrobes #lovemybonnet