Mine is in the top drawer of my bureau, along with my AA, BS & Tech School diplomas. I am thinking about throwing the HS, AA & Tech School diplomas in the trash. Is there any legitimate reason to hang onto them? I wouldn’t throw out my BS diploma, because it seems the only one that represents any value in the bunch.
High school? Never actually got the piece of paper, some silliness about an honors cord being returned too late to be counted. But I graduated, just no paper. I mean, no one ever asks to see it, they can easily check to see if you graduated. Or has anyone asked to see the actual paper?
I think my mother has it in a file somewhere. If not, no biggie. I’m long past having any use for a copy, and in fact, am quite sure it’s been in the same file since I got it in 1979. The actual diploma has never had any functional use, (and the same could be said for my B.A. and J.D.)
It’s crammed into my dining room bookcase along with my undergrad and grad diplomas. Not only display, mind you, still in the decorative case and stacked cross-wise atop books in various genres.
The high school one in particular I would never display, but throwing it out feels weird, so I haven’t.
IME, in most cases in the US, the diploma is just a nice looking piece of paper and can be re-issued for a small fee. What is important to have is certified transcripts, sometimes pre-sealed certified transcripts (e.g. for grad school applications, some skeptical employers). Transcripts typically indicate what diplomas or degrees you got, so the actual diploma is unnecessary when wading through others’ bureaucracies. Also, for people who have changed their name, getting new transcripts issued in one’s current name is usually pretty simple. The admissions folk at Big U Grad School don’t need to know that George Jones was actually born McGeorge St. James de Beaumarchais Jones-Fitzgerald VIII and didn’t get around to simplifying it until after getting his BS and not needing to depend anymore on monthly checks from daddy. He can go back to his alma mater and get new transcripts showing “George Jones, BS (Important Stuff), 2007;Graduate Certificate (Radical Sciencey Studies), 2008”.
No idea, likely lost in a move. I do not have my college diplomas either.
QFT. My high school diploma is in a box along with some other quasi-important papers. In the 35 years since I graduated, I’ve never been called upon to to present it for any reason. Ditto for my college diploma. Transcripts are always what are really important. The only pretty pieces of paper I’ve ever been issued that were actually important were my teaching credentials. I have been asked for copies of them when applying for jobs or movement on the pay scale.
It’s on the wall in my den, along with my college diplomas. It’s with them because:
1.) The grouping of four makes a neat rectangle
2.) The fake blackletter inscription almost exactly matches the fake blackletter inscription on my Ph.D. diploma, and the two are the same size, so they neatly bracket the other two.
the other two use a direct Roman script and some odd “handwritten” font, both of which are as far from the cliché look of a college diploma as you can get. In fact, my MIT diploma is creased down the middle – something other schools will go to great lengths to avoid. MIT’s attitude is like "You want a piece of paper to prove you went here? Okay, here you are. What? You wanted fancy script? Ain’t gonna happen. “What else? It’s folded? That’s a problem? Of course it’s folded – we had to stick it in the presentation thing. What should we have done, roll it up? Be happy we gave you a diploma at all!”
I’m pretty sure mine is stuffed into a scrapbook of crap my mother made for my wife when we got married. Which means it’s in a box in the storage unit somewhere. The college diploma is in the bathroom, as an emergency backup.
One exception to this, however, is doctors. A lot of doctors love to decorate their office with all the fancy diplomas they have received. I once heard an anecdote about a fertility specialist who, in addition to his bachelor’s degree and med school diploma, had his (military) Honorable Discharge hanging on the wall. I guess a little humor is good for love.
Lawyers too. You get a nice certificate from the State Supreme Court when you pass the bar, and you often see those hanging next to the law school diploma in a lawyer’s office.
Mine is in a storage box along with my college diploma. Although I have no real use for it, and haven’t for years, I’ve kept it out of sentimentality. Mine was the last graduating class at my high school. It was decomissioned and torn down the following year. It was a expansion school, built at the height of the baby boom, and no longer necessary as the population of teenagers contracted.
In the trunk in the garage along with my academy diploma. Never to be seen or used after graduation. Now my Thirds license I had to show to get shipping jobs and a few stationary jobs in the past. It now is posted in the hall of my home. And on both sides of my unlimited thirds issued by the US Coast Guard are my dad’s 2nd in steam and 3 in motor vessels issued by the Commerce Department.
I don’t recall an employer ever asking to see my diploma or a copy of it.
To verify education, I call the University directly with the pertinent information about the candidate. If I was hiring someone with only a HS Diploma, I probably wouldn’t even bother trying to validate it.
No idea at all where my high school diploma is. My mom might have it somewhere. My college diploma is shoved in with a bunch of books in my basement. About twice a year I see it and say ‘what’s that…ohhh’. If I needed it, however, I’d know where to find it, however, I can’t imagine needing it for anything. It’s a pretty useless degree (math), but it would be a solid foundation if I were to try to go to a trade school for something technical, but if I did that, I’m sure they’d just get my records transferred and not just count on a decade+ old piece of paper.
If I wanted to get a higher degree in something like physics, I’d end up having to retake most of that math to brush up anyways, so the degree itself wouldn’t do much good (but hopefully I wouldn’t have to retake any general knowledge classes).
ETA, I wouldn’t throw your degrees out, they take up virtually no space (assuming they’re not framed). Just stick them in an envelope and put them in a drawer.
I don’t know. I don’t remember the last time I saw it. 1970 maybe? I can’t think of anything I would need it for, and the same with my college diplomas.
I call that the ego wall. I worked with an older engineer once who had that sort of stuff, along with things like commendations from past clients, an invitation to Reagan’s inauguration and a photo of him shaking hands with some politician.
As for my high school diploma; it’s somewhere in my old bedroom in my parents’ house along with my college degree (of which there is only one).
I kept it on my bookcase, but when the tree came through the window, I moved it temporarily until I could reorganize.
You attended Highlander U too?
No, I’m admitting my shame at not having gone onto graduate school.