Many Cardiff graduates still haven’t received hard copies of their graduation certificates

‘We’ve literally been forgotten’


Cardiff University students who graduated this year have been brutally affected by coronavirus restrictions. From an online and pre-recorded graduation, to a poor graduate job market, post-graduate degrees being pushed back to later start dates, and now their hard copies of certificates still have yet to be received.

The students initially received and e-copy of their certificates where they could send to their relatives or for job applications, etc. However, the university had promised students would still receive a hard copy of the certificate.

The Cardiff Tab spoke to Lauren, now a post-grad at Cardiff, who said: “In July they said hard copies will arrive six to eight weeks after graduation. Now it’s October and we have an e-copy but no hard copy which was meant to come in the post.”

Students feel as though they’ve been brushed aside and forgotten. “Our graduation was a pre-recorded YouTube video with no mention of any individual names or anything, it was so impersonal. And now this.”

Another graduation student went further and emailed the university questioning where their certificate was. It stated in the email: “As for the hard copy certificate, we are running behind our usual timescales.”

Again, they have noted that they are hoping to “resolve this over the next couple of weeks”, and that students certificates should “be with [them] shortly”. Though the graduates aren’t keeping their hopes up.

“It’s been such a bad graduation year and they can’t even do one physical thing like send us all a hard copy certificate, such a joke”, Lauren said.

A Cardiff University spokesperson told The Cardiff Tab: “We apologise to those summer 2020 graduates who have not received a hard copy of their degree certificate. Please be reassured we are working to get these posted out to those graduates as a priority.

“Restricted access to campus and competing workloads as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has meant that we’ve been unable to meet our usual timescales for delivery.

“All students presented to the June Awards and Progress Committee have been issued, and these should have been received in July. The current focus is on the July and August Committees. These will all be posted by the end of October (the majority have been sent in the past two weeks). International certificates will take longer to arrive due to differing postal services.

“All graduates should have received an e-copy of their certificate and HEAR transcript. If there are any problems, we advise graduates to contact the University’s Registry via: [email protected] and we will endeavour to respond to them as soon as possible.”

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