If I’m Honest about … achievement
Who needs a ceremony?
I wondered if maybe I did, after all
I didn’t attend the graduation ceremony for my first university degree. It was 1996. My boyfriend and I had met at Monash doing different degrees, finishing at different times. The whole gown and mortarboard thing felt faintly theatrical, like something Americans did in coming-of-age movies while a power ballad played in the background. By the time my degree was done, I had studied for 17 years straight and I was desperate to travel and forget about study for a while. Both my boyfriend—now my husband*—and I opted out of the pomp and garb. The certificates arrived in the mail in a poster tubes, official-looking stamps and all. An epic anticlimax. I think we left them leaning against a wall for a few years before bothering to display them and now both frames have smashed glass we’ve not replaced.
Because it was an Arts Degree, I reasoned that I wasn’t doing the degree for the piece of paper, I was doing it for the learning. I was curious and insatiable and also ready to jump into the next thing. Achievement felt internal then so I didn’t need an audience.
When I finished my second degree last year—nearly thirty years later—it was a completely new experience. This was a “vocational” degree. I had studied through the pandemic while juggling four children who were also remote learning in the same house, fighting over shared bandwidth. Six lockdowns totalling 262 days, gaining Melbourne the title of the most locked-down city in the world. I mean, I like to achieve, but not this kind of stat. There were days I wanted to quit. Not just the degree but parenting and wife-ing. Just quietly close the laptop, leave the house, drive outside my allotted 5km and possibly keep driving until the police found me, fined me and sent me home.
Obviously, I didn’t succumb to that temptation because I am a rule abider. And I finish shit. Also, I love my family (do I really need to say this?). So I kept going. Some days out of the need to think about something else, to challenge my brain in ways that weren’t simply logistical or emotional support. Some days I kept going out of sheer determination and stubbornness.
I thought about the cap and gown this time but if I’m honest, it seemed kind of ridiculous. Fifty years old and throwing a mortarboard into the air didn’t feel very me. Which is strange, because I spend a fair amount of time telling my husband and kids how funny and smart and cool I am. I want them to notice. I want them to acknowledge what I’ve done. Achievement (and recognition) might not be their love language, but it’s definitely mine. I like evidence. I like my effort to be seen. I like a gold star, even if I pretend I don’t. Perhaps it’s the incredible amount of invisible labour women do every single day of their lives that has fuelled this need. No-one is clapping me for keeping the washing up to date, or for supporting four humans to survive and thrive. Maybe they’ll care that I have not one, but two degrees, I thought. Hmm, no. They seem to love me with or without the fancy paper.
In addition to finishing the second degree, I achieved in the top 2% of all graduates that year. Peak mature-age geek. It landed me on the Vice-Chancellor’s Academic Excellence list. It sounds impressive until you’re back doing groceries and the only thing you’re studying is which cheese is on special. I told my family of this top dog achievement. They said well done. One of the kids rightly called me a nerd. Then we ate dinner. No ceremony, no photographs. The dishwasher still needed unloading. Excellence, it turns out, does not exempt you from rinsing plates.
A friend took me out for breakfast when I told her. She asked questions and looked impressed. I realised how much that mattered. Not because I needed applause, but because she thought it was important enough to mark the moment.
At the time, I told myself I didn’t need the stage or the handshake or my name read aloud. Sitting through hundreds of strangers’ names didn’t appeal either. I had already proved to myself that I could do it. And isn’t that the mature response? To clap quietly for yourself and move on? The quintessential low-key Australian way.
Our son’s graduation
Look at all those caps and gowns!
Then, last week we attended my first-born’s university graduation. Sitting high in the balcony, looking down at the sea of gowns and hats, I felt unexpectedly emotional. I reflected on the weight of what it takes to stay the course. Hold the line. The effort, the persistence (and maybe the eye-watering debt that trails behind a degree now like a small mortgage). I thought about all the mornings my son dragged himself there, trying to decide if it was worth the petrol and parking fees. All the assignments submitted at 11:57pm. All the casual work shifts squeezed in between lectures.
When his name was called, tears clogged at the back of my throat. It caught me off guard. Perhaps it was relief that we had steered one child safely into adulthood. Or witnessing the public acknowledgment of his private effort. Watching him walk across that stage, I wondered if ceremonies aren’t really about the qualification at all. Maybe they exist because humans need moments where someone says this mattered. You did a hard thing. We saw it. Maybe we need witnesses to our persistence.
I’d always told myself that self-validation was enough. Australians celebrate through quiet competence not public fanfare (unless it’s sport, then we scream like a seagull has stolen our chip). But clapping as each student smiled for their families taking photos, I was aware that sometimes a mild pat on the back for something that was quite monumental in the moment isn’t quite enough. Sometimes achievement deserves a pause and appropriate recognition.
Trying the cap on
Just to see how it feels
Maybe the ceremony isn’t about vanity. Maybe it’s about allowing yourself to stand still long enough to acknowledge that you did something difficult. And maybe that’s exactly what women, quietly getting on with it, rarely give themselves permission to do.
Kylie
*proof that rebound flings sometimes turn into 25-year marriages with mortgages and four kids
