Written by Brianna Elliott
Stepping beyond university marks a pivotal and exciting moment in your life. However, whether you are graduating this year, or in the far future, the offboarding process can be tricky to navigate. To help with this transition, here are some essential steps to follow and be aware of before your graduation.
Eligibility
The first step is ensuring that you are eligible to graduate. The ANU has two main criteria that must be met prior to graduating:
- That students have satisfied (or will satisfy) the academic requirements of their award/s
- That students have settled all obligations with ANU (fees and fines etc.).
Once students have completed this process, a notification will be sent via their Interactive Student Information System (ISIS) Message Board if they are identified as potential graduates. However, if students have not received this message but believe they are eligible to graduate, ANU advises them to immediately contact their ANU College.
From there, if you have been ‘approved’ or ‘conditionally approved’ (pending final semester results) to graduate in the July or December graduation sessions, students will then receive an invitation to confer their award via their ANU email account. However, it is important to note that this invitation must be responded to via the ISIS page, otherwise the conferral of your award/s will not occur.
Alumni and Other Services
While ensuring that you are eligible and meeting the requirements to graduate, there are other processes that should be considered simultaneously.
The next step would be becoming a member of the ANU Alumni community. This program offers a wide variety of benefits and services including library resources, exclusive networking opportunities and events, and career development resources.
An ANU Spokesperson further highlights, “Alumni can access ISIS using the same login credentials as your ANU Alumni email account which is available to all ANU alumni.” This means students who are part of this program also have lifelong access to their student email accounts and other ANU resources, services and facilities.
This is a vital step to do prior to your graduation ceremony, as students will “lose access 3 months after Conferral” notes an ANU Graduation Officer.
While signing up to be one of ANU’s Alumni may not seem particularly appealing or beneficial to some students, losing access to all your academic records post-graduation is definitely less than ideal.
Hence, ANU recommends that you create a ‘My eQuals’ account, which allows graduates to view, download and share their academic documents at any time after your graduation. These online documents include transcripts, Australian Higher Education Graduation Statements (AHEGS) and Testamurs.
Post-Graduation Ceremony: What Next?
In case you have missed these steps and have already graduated and moved on from university life, there are still ways to access your transcripts and academic records.
An ANU Graduations Officer notes that “if [a student or graduate] no longer has access to ISIS, it is advised they reach out to the Student Central Team to purchase transcripts and AHEGS documents.” They further stated, “if they are requesting a replacement Testamur to then contact the Graduation Office”.
While there are fees associated with purchasing academic documents, the ANU Graduations Officer highlights that this payment allows you to receive both “physical and digital” versions of these documents.
However, replacing a lost, damaged, or destroyed Testamur involves a different process from its academic records counterpart. This is because the Testamur serves as an official document verifying your qualification, as well as featuring the University seal and signatures from the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor.
For this process, there are three main elements to complete: a Replacement Testamur Application, a Statutory Declaration, and the payment of the $120 administration fee. From here, the Graduations Office will take around 5 business days to process the documents before being available for collection or postage.
The graduation process may seem scary and tricky as you are navigating the final steps of your university journey, but if these steps aren’t enough, reaching out to other students with a post to ANU Confessions or ANU Schmidtposting is always a safe bet to find reassurance.
Graphics by Luc Mattiske
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