Joyful throwing of caps at the graduation celebration

Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University has invited the young people to take part in a central graduation celebration since the first students completed their studies in 1999. This year’s 16^th graduation celebration was held in the Bonn Telekom Forum for the 10th time.

University President Professor Dr Hartmut Ihne was the first to deliver a speech to the graduates, in which he provided them with six keywords for the evening and their future lives. First of all, he drew their attention to the term “absolvens”, meaning ‘to absolve of’ or ‘to discharge’. He linked the keywords ‘suffering’, ‘freedom’, ‘thinking’, ‘the others’ and ‘joy’ to this term. Then he called upon the graduates to use the expertise they have acquired for the benefit of society. “The world needs the expertise of all of us, our joint care for the future and our willingness to act in line with standards of fairness and sustainability,” said Ihne. He closed his speech by wishing the graduates all the best for their future lives and by inviting them to keep in touch with their alma mater.

Keynote speaker Hannes Neumann titled his presentation ‘Navigation towards success’. In this speech he entertainingly presented his system, which is aimed at achieving private and professional goals in seven steps. Using astounding visual shows, he captured the guests’ attention, got them involved in his presentation and often even made them laugh.

Daniel Kajan from the Department of Management Sciences looked back on his time at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University on behalf of all the other graduates. He was actively involved with student government in his capacity as Chair of the Student Council of the Department of Management Sciences. It was also his idea to introduce the ‘Student Body Award’ (‘Preis der Studierendenschaft’), for which he was able to gain the support of the General Students’ Committee (AStA) and the International Centre for Sustainable Development (IZNE). Together with Julian Tinapp, Chair of the General Students’ Committee, he also seized the opportunity to advertise the prize, asking all those present to buy Kölsch (beer) glasses in the Telekom Forum. The proceeds from the award will be used to support a student from the Ghanaian partner university Cape Coast who is planning to set up his own business.

This advertising campaign is very much in line with the presentation of the ‘Sustainability and Responsibility Award’ (‘Preis für Nachhaltigkeit und Verantwortung’), donated by our university’s Academic Foundation for the second time. Tobias Rechmann (Department of Management Sciences) and Andreas Wurzenberger (IZNE) share the prize, which is worth € 1,000.

The Equal Opportunity Commissioner’s Award for the best Master’s thesis completed by a female student was also presented. The winner is computer scientist Teena Hassan.

In the end, the graduates went on stage individually. Each of them was given a business card case as a souvenir along with information about the university’s Alumni Association before the Bachelor’s and Master’s caps were finally thrown into the air boisterously.

After that partying was the order of the day until late at night in the ‘Casino’ (canteen) of the Bonn Telekom Forum. The young people danced like there was no tomorrow to the live music played by TheBIGlive university band and the hits selected by DJ Disco King Chris, thus leaving the time of their studies definitively behind in the company of their fellow students.  They later took wonderful memories and lots of friendships home with them.

Please click here to go to the picture gallery: 2014 Graduation Celebration