Hundreds of happy graduates passed through Aberdeen’s Music Hall yesterday, proudly clutching their degrees as they entered a new chapter in their working lives.
Two winter ceremonies were held at the iconic venue with students from Robert Gordon University’s faculties of health and social care and design and technology picking up awards.
University chancellor Sir Ian Wood told the former that with an aging population, healthcare will be one of the biggest challenges the UK will face over the next 20-30 years – and that “our national health service is being seriously challenged”.
He added: “There’s a clear shift to the majority of health and care being delivered in the community which means your workplace will move from acute hospital care to community centres and people’s homes.”
Sir Ian also called for the graduates not to concentrate on the “what ifs of the past” but the “what ifs of the future”.
“I have great hope for your generation,” he said.
“I think you have huge imagination, resilience, are more caring and have a much better appreciation of the world’s inequities.”
Rows of families filled the concert hall, with whoops and cheering bounding off the walls as they were encouraged to make as much noise as they liked to add to the atmosphere.
During the afternoon celebration, university principal Ferdinand Von Prondzynski told the graduates that education was a partnership.
“We learn from you as you learn from us and it is a partnership that should not stop at graduation,” he said.
“Whatever it is that you have done, whether you stay here or go to some other part of the world, the skills you have acquired here will be very important.”
