I don’t know anyone with PhD in Finland personally so I had to turn to Finnish google.
Doctoral graduates get a sword and a top hat when they graduate, excluding some fields like technology. The graduation ceremony is called Promootio and the sword is called Tohtorinmiekka (lit. PhD’s Sword).
The sword as a PhD symbol was first used in Helsinki University’s (back then known as Aleksanterin yliopisto University) 200 years’ ceremonial party, in 1840. The sword symbolizes truth and it’s scientist’s spiritual weapon to find the truth, the right and the good from everything, and also to defend these values. The sword is designed by famous 19th century Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela (famous for his Kalevala paintings) and it’s an officially recognized national civilian sword of the independent country of Finland.
Graduates have to buy their own sword and a top hat. The hand made sword is around 380 euros and the top hat 500-800 euros. The promootio graduation ceremony also costs 420 euros. Some decide not to buy any of these for the graduation but rent or borrow the sword and the hat from someone. If the graduate gets their own sword, the sword will be engraved for them. The sword is always black-golden and comes with the university’s golden symbol.
If the PhD graduate participates the Promootio graduation ceremony, they must have both the top hat and the sword. Without them, they can’t graduate.
The sword is always carried on the left side and must be fastened to a hip. Men’s suits have a special hoop for the sword but women have to use belts to fasten the sword. If fastening the sword is impossible, then the sword must be carried in a left hand.
If you’ve had a period of basically dissociating from a hard time of your life, you’ll know that doing even the littlest thing that has an effect in the real world vs on a screen can be so profound. Something as little as you doing a favor for someone, or someone noticing something about you that you didn’t think anyone would even pick up on bc your brain is all messed up about being perceived. Your living footprint is all muddied and murky. It takes a lot to even feel like you’re inhibiting your body. So consequences that come as a direct result of you just living, whether big or small, blow you away on an inexplicable level
if you’ve ever lived an isolated life, knowing that you’re making a mark in the “real world” can feel so wonderful and strange. you mean i exist, outside of this weird liminal space i inhabit? i get so hungry for that validation. you know my favorite color!!? you think i have a sweet voice?!! you remember that thing i said ages ago!!? because of these seemingly inane things, i get to affirm, again & again, i exist, i exist, i exist. im a real person!! i do things that have consequences!! i won’t disappear off the face of the earth if you remember me in these big & small ways.
Unidentified maker; fabric designed by Anna Maria Garthwaite and woven by Mr. Pulley, Spitalfields, England
Date: 1742-1743; altered c. 1840
Comment: Only four pieces of fabric were usually woven of any one pattern, so that the fashion-conscious gentry who wore these elaborate dresses would never see anyone else wearing something similar. This dress was made of English fabric, probably for Christina Ten Broeck Livingston, wife of Philip Livingston, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. It may have been worn at the christening of Christina’s son Dirck in 1743. The fabric in this dress shows the beginnings of the naturalistic Rococo style in English silks.
