Master graduation ceremonial at SBE at UM

Saturday, 10^th December 2011 – Personal experience – permalink

Another official event at School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University I had opportunity to attend. This time as a guest not as a part of the promotion team. A friend of mine come to get her diploma and I offered to make some pictures.

MSc Graduation ceremonial, source: my picture

The Graduation ceremonial at School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University takes place in the Aula. Somebody calls it "church" so it gives you the image, how the place looks like. I connect the University with academic environment and I also connect it usually to old building and history. I do not now why, I just do, even here even though I am aware of the fact that Maastricht University was established about 30 years ago. But at least SBE is located in city centre of Maastricht, so the history is still there.

The dress code for the event was obviously the suit and the graduates also got a blue scarf with the Maastricht University on it. Quite nice actually, as It made the graduates distinctive from their families and friends. At the entrance I saw a guy I know from Open Days (Bachelor's and Master's). He was again working for the UM and told me, that there are 4 sessions today we are the 3rd. Wow, that's a lot of people who finish at SBE. But if I take the size of the school, that's actually not surprising.

Graduation Ceremonial

Students sits on the podium and are therefore the whole time in contact with the audience – their friends and families. The whole ceremonial is guided by a professor, who also invites some guests to talk – some former students about their experiences. Even though this event is a official master graduation, it's not held at very formal level. People are asked to come forward to make pictures, there is a live music – singer and guitar player. I can only compare this to my experience from the Czech republic where I had my own Bachelor's graduation about 2 months ago.

I like the place, it's a bit dark but the old formal monastery building creates special atmosphere. After introduction, students are asked one by one to come forward and the professor reads a letter addressed from their thesis supervisor to them. This sounds like a great idea and I must admit, I was impressed by it. On the other hand a lot of the letters are in Dutch or German and not in English which makes it sometimes a bit boring, as you do not understand it. The letter is in almost all of the cases about how the student wrote his or her master thesis. As there is a letter for everybody, the whole ceremonial takes a long time. During short brakes the word is passed to the singer so the audience can relax a bit. I really loved the music, it was awesome. Well, maybe the songs were not that connected to the ceremonial, but it doesn't matter that much I think.

After the official part, also a few information are passed from the Alumni office. Well, to be honest, this part could be left for the after party in Ad Fundum, for me, this was not the closure for the ceremonial I expected. To compare it, to my ceremonial? Well, it's different and from the first point of view is our in Czech republic more formal and shorter. There are also more people from the head of the University and Faculty present, which also adds to the formality and respect.

After party

To free the mind and also provide some refreshment after about 2 hours in Aula, student with their company move to Ad Fundum to have some snack and drink for free. This was really nice, we could chat for a bit, make additional pictures and enjoy the fresh graduates. Students leave quite soon the building to celebrate the special day mostly in the city. The city was really crowded and as my friends told me, it was really hard to find a place for dinner. We met also later on in the pub to spent some more time together before they leave back to Prague. Congratulation! Masters of Science!