The graduation ceremony at the Faculty
The traditional graduation ceremony for the master's programmes at the Faculty of Social Sciences was not as traditional this year. Instead of everyone participating in the ceremony in the beautiful main building of Lund University, the ceremony was instead digital and broadcasted on Zoom and Youtube.
Nevertheless, this was a day full of excitement, relief, happiness, anticipation and some sadness, as students joined together in taking their last official steps at Lund University.
The ceremony included speeches, music, and individual congratulations as the students' names were listed on the screen and they were seen waiving from their computers. One of the speeches was held by our own student at the Master's programme in Service Management, Afra Mukthar, who talked about the lifelong connections that the students will have with each other after finishing the programme.
The farewell reception at the Department
Also this year's farewell reception had to be a digital one, where the department invited all graduating master students to a gathering on Zoom.
The reception was hosted by the programme director Malin Zillinger. The head of department Mattias Wengelin as well as the master coordinator Britta Persson gave speeches. A movie made by our student assistant Victor Elikplim Agbebo was shown, with master students talking about their experiences from the programme and the university.
The department also handed out an award for the best thesis in Service Management on master's level. The award was handed out by professor Johan Hultman and the motivation was as follows:
"This thesis explains the role of social media in shaping a sustainability awareness about the need for individuals to engage with food waste. The work is socially relevant, grounded in theory, well-crafted empirically, and analytically rich. The author also gives proof of clear efforts to synthetize the findings. The text is remarkably well-written. The reader quickly becomes engaged and curious about the study. As a reader, you also get close to what emerges in the empirical material and the findings are communicated in an eminent and interesting way. In other words – the reader is guided through the thesis from beginning to end."
Author: Jared Offei Lartey
Title: Digital Food Technologies and Our Everyday Lives: A Social Practice Analysis of Sustainable Food Consumption among Young Adults