Pictures by Martin Ruiz Rueda, RUEDA STUDIO, www.ruedastudio.com
In this blog post we reminisce about our recent cohort Generation 11s’ milestone: Graduation.
This year’s graduation was celebrated on Friday the 4th of October 2024. The well-deserved graduation celebration followed their successful thesis defenses held the month prior. (read more information about the process of thesis defenses from last year here) .
First of all, we want to congratulate all of our students for the incredible work they accomplished! We are so proud of you all. We want to thank every single one of you who attended graduation and has been a constant source of support during our students’ journey in the Vienna Master. This blog post recapitulates, remembers, and celebrates Generation 11’s unforgettable graduation day. During the day we spoke to our students and heard their thoughts and memories of the Vienna Master experience.
The day started with a photo shoot of our graduating students with our incredible photographer Martin Ruiz Rueda aka Tincho. He always succeeds in capturing the unforgettable moments we can thankfully look back on later. From the initial portrait pictures to the pictures of the ceremony and afterparty, he captured our students, visitors, and guests. You can see his incredible work in this post.
The photography session was followed by a rehearsal of the ceremony. Our students got into the feeling of graduation guided by our amazing Master of ceremony, our very own: Georges Younes. Through George’s spirit and energy, you can not help yourself but get excited and enthusiastic. Following rehearsal and numerous pictures, it was time to open the doors to all the loved ones who showed up to celebrate the graduating students. We were particularly fortunate to welcome with plentiful hugs former program assistants and alumni from various countries to be part of this day.
The ceremonial entrance started with us welcoming all the graduates and dignitaries to the stage with big applause accompanied by an amazing orchestra Devet. Georges welcomed everyone with his heartwarming and humorous opening speech.
After Georges’s welcoming speech, we heard a round of inspiring speeches. The first one was held by Eva-Maria Stadler, the director of the Institute for Art and Society University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her speech was on behalf of the Angewandte and concentrated on the beauty and importance of the Applied Arts University. She pointed out the very interesting history of the campus. Her speech was followed by our honorary speakers.
We were very lucky this year to welcome two amazing honorary speeches by Rita Isiba, Engagement and Inclusion Specialist & Managing Director of ZARA (Civil Courage & Antiracism Work) and Golnar Shahyar a Vocalist, Composer, Instrumentalist & Activist. As a pleasant surprise to our students, these former lecturers joined us with incredible speeches. The speeches by Rita and Golnar touched everyone in the room. Golnar talked about the importance of studies in Human Rights while addressing the unfortunate state of the current world followed by a very touching musical rendition of her original work. Rita addressed her speech to our students and their potential as change-makers. Her speech encouraged the students to stay true to themselves and not lose their spark when working in the field of Human Rights. She ended her speech with the great quote of Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Then it was time for the ceremonial speech by our Program director Manfred Nowak. Followed finally by the conferral of degrees issued by Manfred and our administrative coordinator Russel Altamirano. This awaited moment of the conferral of degrees was followed by the proclamation of graduations led by our lovely senior academic advisor Marijana Grandits. This beautiful moment and the new graduates’ enthusiasm.
The closing speech from the team “Looking Back and Ahead” was held by our academic & artistic program managers Walter Suntinger and Marilyn Volkman. Guided by their speech, the students were surprised by receiving their ”human rights lenses” in different colours. The human rights lenses symbolise the way our students learn to look at this world during their studies and will carry this important lesson into the future. With the glasses on our graduates were finally ready for their future adventures.
The last speech was held by the student representative of Generation 11 Katie McCarthy. Her speech “Our Human Rights Journey” was incredibly inspiring and stayed with all of us. Katie has a real gift for public speaking and she reminisced about their common past years in Vienna Master. Her speech beautifully closed off by addressing all the 17 graduating students and complimenting their qualities one by one. She emphasizes these unique qualities to remind the students to take with gratitude and pride their future. She gave all the students their well-deserved attention during the ceremony. We could not have imagined a better way to end the round of speeches.
It was time to end the ceremony and move on to the reception of the graduates. During our recent graduates’ ceremonial exit; the orchestra Devet played songs requested by the students which reminded them of the past years in Vienna. The students were dancing and enjoying this significant milestone together. Congratulations were exchanged and it was time to celebrate. The evening was full of unforgettable and warm moments, good food, and dancing! The photo booth has also become a tradition of our graduation and was fully enjoyed to capture moments and friendships of this day.
Amidst the celebration, we had the opportunity to talk a few of our students. They shared important thoughts about the program and the experience as a whole. These thoughts highlight some important moments of their experience in the Vienna Master and to emphasize the importance of friendships and the study of Human Rights.
We asked our student Nadia “What is one important thing you learned while studying in this program?”. For Nadia one of the most important things she learned was the importance of friendships and support. She emphasizes: “Friends really turn into your family when you live abroad, which can be a scary experience at first. A class like this, where everybody supports everybody, friends become your family”.
Also, Grace shared her favorite thing about the program. Grace stated, “My favorite thing about this program is the internationality of it”. She emphasized that the program allows students to study with people from different backgrounds and different countries and various fields of studies, and learn with them through different projects, conferences, and classes. “I enjoyed just learning and becoming friends with them, getting to learn from them not only about myself but also about human rights”.
Gabriel highlighted the importance of the study of human rights in this current state of the world with ongoing conflicts and challenges:“The most important thing I learned is that in the current state of the world, human rights are threatened and it is necessary through interdisciplinary approaches to protect human rights beyond just the normative legal frameworks.”
Myriel highlighted the importance of the study trips. Her favorite memories of the program were the study trips to Kosovo and Venice. She noted the diversity of these very intensive learning experiences combined with lectures, which also shows the diversity of the classes the Master’s program offers. Myriel emphasizes these challenging and enjoyable learning experiences give a glimpse into a post-grad learning experience, which she appreciated a lot.
Once again we congratulate our new graduates who are now also officially the Masters of Arts in Applied Human Rights. After graduating they are welcomed with open arms into our amazing alumni network. In the alumni network, we stay in touch and share important news with our big community, which currently consists of 249 old students and team members!
Don’t be strangers and let us stay in touch. We hope autumn treats you kindly and that your adventures start with fond memories from your time with us. The Master Team is eagerly following your future adventures and want to remind to keep your Human Rights lenses on!
