The first of Dundee University’s winter graduations ceremonies were held on Thursday, as graduands and their families descended on City Square.
Two of the three ceremonies took place, with the remaining event due on Friday morning.
Around 1,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students will have graduated across the three ceremonies.
They are held for students whose courses finish after the traditional summer graduation will be recognised.
However, they also allow students to reflect on their time in the city.
One such graduate, Jonathan De Vries, moved from America to study his own country’s history.
Quickly establishing himself as a star student in the American History masters, the 35-year-old has now obtained a PhD in the subject.
In addition to his academic success, Jonathan also found his future wife Jennifer at the university.
Jennifer, a nursery teacher who was studying at the time, accompanied Jonathan to his graduation.
Things could have turned out very differently for the couple had a very simple gesture not persuaded Jonathan that his future lay in Dundee.
“I had completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin–Platteville and had already decided to study in Scotland,” he explained.
“I had offers from several universities but as soon as I applied here I was given a Dundee email address. It felt as if I already belonged at the university and we had an established connection.”
Jonathan’s PhD focused on the history of Kentucky. He noticed many historians tend to focus on the early settlers in America or established communities.
“You’ve either got nothing, or you have Little House on the Prairie,” he explained.
“I wanted to find out how you get to that point. I tried to fill in that gap.”
As tradition dictates, successful students like Jonathan feel the tap of the Dundee bonnet in the Caird Hall at their graduation.
The bonnet – spun, woven, dyed and embroidered for the university by the Dundee Bonnetmakers Craft – is used by the chancellor, Lord Patel of Dunkeld, to symbolically confer degrees on graduates.
