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What do you do with your diplomas?
I'm kind of a minimalist. I really don't keep much but for some reason I've been lugging my diplomas along with me for decades. I have my high school diploma, my college diploma, and my master's diploma. I really don't care about any of them, to be honest. And the worst is my master's, because it's stupidly large. If they were all small and uniform, I'd just slide them into some folder and forget about them. I'm not someone who will hang them up. In a way, they feel like emotional baggage. So I don't think I'm ready to just shred them and move on. But at the same time I find them generally worthless. What do you do with your diplomas and what should I do with mine?
Like many important documents I keep them somewhere safe that I completely forget about for years until I need them and proceed to tear the house apart in desperation.
Diplomas in Brazil are not merely ceremonial and you do need them sometimes.
That's interesting. Is there no overarching authority where authenticity can be checked? I suppose I'm operating under the assumption that if I ever need to "prove" my education, it's a few clicks away. Maintaining a physical document feels archaic.
You can check with the universities that generated the diplomas themselves, perhaps with the Ministry of Education (national). But, at least in my time, that wasn't quick or simple thing and involved bureaucracy. Perhaps there's an online system today, but I would be surprised.
My college diploma is from a private institution but it was actually generated by a federal university. I assume the federal university works as a kind of notary public.
If I recall correctly there are three signatures in my diploma -- my Dean, the coordinator for my major/course, and someone from the federal institution.
Notarized diplomas simplify processes for institutions that must vet candidates for all kinds of public and private positions, as well as for access to upper education. They'll only investigate provenance if there's a suspicion of fraud. And of course, any kind of diploma fraud is a crime. Some people still fake diplomas and it is uncertain how successful they are.
I'm pretty sure there's a signature by my state's Secretary of Education in my high school diploma. I'm talking about the head of education in a state with a population of 10+ million.
These are all things I picked up as a student interacting with bureaucracy and also from the news (such as diploma fraud scandals). The reality of how these things work may be different from my impressions.
Brazil is a very bureaucratic country.
My wife recently needed some proof of education, and it was an absolute nightmare. The systems do exist but they are not necessarily very accessible. I wouldn’t rely on that. It took months.
It's the same in Australia. You do occasionally need to show your university diploma to your prospective employer, depending on the job and its legal requirements.
If a prospective employer wanted to see proof where I am, they'd likely request a transcript instead. Harder to fake or something I suppose.
I just keep mine with my birth certificate, immigration certificate, and other important documents. I also keep scans of all these documents (both the front and the back), but I hang on to the originals just in case I need to get a certified copy.
These are definitely not documents that I would just throw away. If you ever get a job overseas, for example, you may find that you need them for your work visa.
I have them in my office at work. I work in higher ed though so it's typical to have them that way.
Can you store them in some archival paper and decide what to do later if you're not sure yet if getting rid of them is the answer?
If a new professor were hired and they came in and didn't hang up their diplomas, how would that be received by other faculty?
I don't work in faculty, I'm student affairs, not academic, but I don't think anyone would give a damn. It's your office. For certain it's not a big deal for us.
Thank you. I guess I hang on to this notion that maybe someday I'll be a professor but if I'm being a realist I don't think it'll ever happen.
Yeah I mean, I think there's a benefit to keeping them for memories and the like, if you're inclined, but also I don't think it's necessary. You could keep your terminal/highest degree if you felt like it. I have a china cabinet in my house that is less for china (though we have some family pieces) and more for "random things that are fragile and that I want to keep for now" and that's where mine would live if not at work.
There could be higher ed environments much more stuffy though - the vibes of business school profs is VERY different than say, education profs, or social work profs.
Yeah, as a prof, the job journey is slim. But if it's the job for you, it's the ONLY job for you.
Regarding diplomas, I am just now putting mine up, and I've been in the job since 2021. Getting them nicely matted and framed. Most folks don't have them up in their office, I'm weird lol.
I'm a new teaching faculty hire and while I currently have mine in the little flippy faux leather thing in my office mainly so I don't have to store it at home, it's tucked away in a corner that most people wouldn't see. I think in either case, it's not really a big deal.
Just to echo similar sentiments, I would hold onto the diplomas and just fold them up and store them away with your other official documentation. No one is going to care if it's creased a little.
Is there a way you're supposed to display them in those faux leather things? Both my high school and college diplomas came with them, but they're currently sitting in a drawer.
My master's degree is from a German university, so it just kinda looks like a normal letter instead. Doesn't bother me in and of itself, but it does look silly next to the other two in the fancy American style.
I have it displayed like the left example in that image, where the university logo is on front and it's in a tent position. I would like to have it showing the actual diploma, but I feel like I need to prop it on the wall for that to happen and so I feel like I should maybe get a frame at some point.
Ah, that makes sense. I've never been sure if there's a way they're supposed to be displayed other than framing them.
No one would notice or care. I don't have one diploma hung up in the office. The most recent one came framed but is leaning between the desk and the wall in the office. Most are filed away. Two are framed but stacked on a shelf in the basement. My offce decorations are photos of family, thank you cards from patients and students, and one award for being a good clinical supervisor to the local grad students. Otherwise it's stacks of books from desktop to ceiling behind a bunch of computers. :)
(For ref, I'm a TT assoc prof at an R1 academic medical center, which is a pretty stuffy/peacock setting)
My diploma is in the folder I received it in. If I had to move, it would likely get binned. In the unlikely event someone wanted to verify my degree, they'd ask for a transcript from the university, not my piece of paper. Maybe if I had more of my self-image tied up in being a "college man" or something like it I'd care more, but graduation wasn't inherently meaningful to me, and thus the paper is equally meaningless.
If you ever get a job overseas, they may not be able to simply request a transcript. You may need the original document for visa purposes, depending on that country's laws.
You can probably request a new copy of your diploma if you need it, but that adds time and expense.
Thank you, that's a valuable piece of information. I'm not yet looking seriously at fleeing the USA, but knowing that it has value for that purpose is a helpful tip.
It's too bad, then, that a diploma isn't the size of a credit card. I hate having these large pieces of paper that convey some idea of who I am. Why can't it be portable?!
When I graduated (1986) my university actually did issue a laminated credit card size version of their diploma along with the normal 8x10 paper. I'm sure I still have both... somewhere...
I see your point. For me, attaining it was a decade and a half long journey with incredible struggles and a lot that I overcame through great effort.
I'd love to display mine, but not because I value being a "college man".
All of mine are in the envelope my master's came in, postmarked 2007. I just keep carrying it around. I guess it represents a lot of money, so maybe that's why I hang on. The education is all in my head, so the paper doesn't matter to me. Plus nobody really cares about my education. So I just have this paper that'll take some emotional gumption to dispose of if I decide that. It's so weird.
I was one of the highest-scoring students of all time in my department.
It's gathering dust in a drawer because it permanently has my necronym on it and there is no legal framework that allows me to republish it with my proper name.
My doctorate is hung in my office; given my route through life I am proud of it. There is a lot love, friendship, loss, and life experience tied up in that thing. I don't have a high school diploma or GED but the other college degrees are just stored in a closet.
My undergrad diploma is with my dad. It has much more significance to him than it does to me.
My grad diploma is a much different scenario. I never actually received a diploma, or it was sent off to the wrong address. I contacted the college and they sent me one free of charge. Only, the diploma that I received wasn't the degree I was actually educated in. So I kept that one and never got my real diploma.
Mine is in a cracked frame in a box somewhere. The paper is not valuable to me at all and I would not care if I lost it.
It's sitting on top of my knitting shelf collecting dust. I want to frame it, but I can't justify spending the ludicrous amount of money for a frame.
Mine is framed and hung on a wall in my office, and I have a sightline to it from my desk. I'm one of those people that "just" got a degree because it seemed necessary for employment in my field, but, nevertheless, I keep it hanging and in view because it represents that I put in hard work for a while, and achieved a goal which was not that easy to achieve.
Honestly, reading other comments here, I'm a little surprised I'm in the minority, but, to each their own, I guess.
I have my college diploma framed and hung near my desk as well. But honestly I don't remember ever getting it framed, I believe it came that way. And since it's in the frame, hanging it in my office feels the most appropriate and convenient option. Plus my university is hard to spell so having it right there is occasionally useful.
I have other achievements on display, most particularly there was an award relevant to my industry that I received almost a decade ago (!) that came with a small trophy that has always been on prominent display for me at home. I'm really proud of that and I like seeing it.
But for me my diploma was just whatever. I didn't even attend my uni graduation, it conflicted with something that I thought was more important. High school I had to because I was our class valedictorian and I had to go on stage individually (though thankfully someone else gave our speech), but otherwise I would've skipped high school graduation too, and I didn't even have a conflict for that, I just didn't want to waste 3 hours.
My parents bought me an expensive frame for my diploma, but I've never used it. We hung very few things up in all the places we lived in the US since we knew they were temporary. Now that I've settled into a house the frame doesn't go with any of our furniture in our office so it would look very out of place if I hung it up there.
I have a feeling it's going to sit in our storage room for a long time as I can't bring myself to get rid of it
I’ve only ever needed mine once. To get a discount on car insurance a couple of years ago I had to provide a photo of my college diploma. Fortunately we had moved recently, so I had a good idea of where it was.
I had actually lost track of it a few years prior, and had ordered a new copy. I was disappointed to discover that the university apparently doesn’t retain the blank templates for each year’s graduating class. The new copy was for a different degree than the one I earned, one that didn’t even exist when I graduated, and it bore the signature of the current governor of the state, not the one who was in office when I graduated.
On the plus side, the current governor was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as it happens I found my original diploma a couple of months after receiving the new copy, so now I have the original as well as a somewhat amusing artifact.
my parents have mine (and also I believe, my brother's) buried in some closet, they haven't moved in 30 years and are unlikely to move unless/until it's to a retirement home.
I have mine and my wife's packed away in the fire safe with other documents. They are a point of personal pride for me, but not something I need to advertise to anyone. 🤷♂️
my high school diploma is on a bookshelf somewhere, bc its small enough to fit there. My college diplomas are in the envelope they came in and that envelope is...uh. Well. Its probably in my apartment somewhere? Most likely in a box that is in my apartment, along with some professional certificates, some old MRIs of my knees, and other assorted detritus. i probably didnt throw it away but i couldnt say what box any of that is actually in lol.
But, i dont think i actually need any of it? I've never had a job ask for a physical diploma, just official transcripts, and my degrees are basically worthless anyway so ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Mine is stuffed away with other supposedly important documents, to be never seen again unless there's some extenuating circumstance (that I've yet to encounter). Can't even say I'm proud of it because I hate the institution it is from (and tbh the quality of the education I received was fairly awful too), never used the degree as anything more than just "proof of some level of college education / four years of commitment to finishing a thing" . It essentially means nothing to me anymore, but may to an employer, but employers never requested to see mine in person, they just contact the institution or whatever
I kept mine in the padded folio thing that diplomas typically come in, but otherwise just kept it with important documents in a messenger bag I use for stuff like that.
But a few years ago, my brother actually bought me a diploma frame. So I put it in there and hung it up. It's not currently hung up, since I moved like 7mo ago and just haven't gotten around to hanging everything up. But I'll hang it up in my room again at some point.
I actually have no clue where mine is. It came in a tube, and it might be buried in that tube in some random box somewhere? I think my mother-in-law has a copy of my diploma framed somewhere.
It doesn't come up much, and I was glad to be done with uni by the time I got a job.
Somewhere stored in a folder. I will also likely never need the physical document anymore either. Even if asked for my diploma I can just request a digital copy online. I go to the website of the "education department" which is a government agency responsible for the administration around education like student loans, grants, enrollments and also maintaining a diploma register. I log in there with my DigiD and have access everything from my outstanding student debt (bleh) to digital copies of my diploma.
I think I've just thrown them out when I got them, if there would have been an option to not get one, I would have opted to not waste the paper. I think I had already left town instead of walking for graduation. For someone who is naturally curious, I am weirdly horrible at being a student, so I had to work super hard to barely graduate. I am proud of the acheivment but knew I'm also not really someone who would hang something like that up anywhere.
I think mine is in one of my old office bins that frankly should be cleaned out. Any place that’s required proof, I’ve just paid the fee to have transcripts sent over. Other than that, I see no reason to throw it up anywhere.
I keep mine in the same folder as the rest of my "important papers"- birth certificate, passports, transcripts, etc. Though, this is a more recent arrangement, as I needed to present it to attend graduate school in Germany, but prior to that it was kept in a storage tote in the garage along with my other college paraphernalia.
I might've been more inclined to keep it in a more prominent place if it had the name of my full degree on it, but it was just a generic "Bachelor of Science" degree instead. It would've been nice to have that little bit more of recognition for something I put so much effort in to earning..
They are wherever my mom put them. One day, she'll come to visit me and say, "Do something with these." Until then, like I saw others say, my official transcript is all that ever matters (and I also now work where I did grad school, so they know.)
Mine is somewhere in my parents house (I assume)